Cusiter returns to a confident fold
Strong squad spirit as Glasgow relish top-of-table clash
david GLASGoW head coach Gregor Townsend has worked hard to develop a strong spirit in his squad while pushing for the Rabodirect Pro12 title, but at the heart of that has been a delicate balancing act of rotating players.
Chris Cusiter is one who returns tonight for the first versus second clash with Munster at Scotstoun and Townsend accepted that it had not been easy dropping the Scotland and British and Irish Lions scrum-half out of the 23 altogether for the Heineken Cup match in Toulon, and leaving him on the bench last week in the win over Exeter, when Henry Pyrgos was left out.
“It’s great for us this week because he will bring us experience, competitiveness and skill,” said Townsend.
“He has played very well in his games for us, one of them being against Leinster. He captained the team that night and played really well, so we’re expecting a similar performance.
“I would prefer to have the whole squad to pick from, but to have players who have played at the highest level really motivated for these games is great. We have great competition in a number of positions, one of them being scrum-half, and in the last three games we’ve had three different nines [Cusiter, Pyrgos and niko Matawalu].
“It’s great for me as a coach that we have that quality. They all want to play, as I would if I was a player, but they also understand that they are up against very good players. My aim – and hopefully theirs – is to make sure that brings out the best from them. They all have different strengths, but they are all good players with very good basic skills.”
Townsend was known to have a great rugby mind, and cutting edge ideas as a coach, but it was the man-management aspect that many feared he might find tough, stepping straight into a club head coach role after just three seasons as an assistant in the very different environment of a national squad. He appears to be handling it well, if Cusiter’s take is anything to go by.
“What it says is that we have