Although rugby and Glasgow Warriors is Moray Low’s first love, like most that live in Scotland’s biggest city, he also shares a passion for football.

Moray has been a Celtic fan since he can remember and realised a life-long dream at the weekend as he and some of his team-mates met hoops midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura at Celtic’s Lennoxtown training facility.

Speaking exclusively to glasgowwarriors.org, he recalled: “It was a bit funny how it came about. A Japanese television programme was looking for some big guys to form a defensive wall for a free-kick competition between Nakamura and the show’s presenter.

“We were meant to be the difficult wall that Nakamura had to score past whilst the presenter has to shoot past a bunch of kids.

“I’ve always enjoyed football and I was raised by my dad to support Celtic. Nakamura is one of my favourite players and meeting him at the weekend was definitely a highlight for me. I managed to get my picture taken with him and he signed one of the balls we were using for the filming so that’s keeping my mantelpiece warm for the return of the 1872 Cup!

The Warriors lined-up against Nakamura for a free-kick challenge

Following an ankle injury which ruled him out of Scotland’s summer tour to Argentina, Low hasn’t featured as much in Glasgow’s starting XV as he did last year. However, the battle to get back in front of Ed Kalman is one which he is relishing as the Warriors compete at the top end of the Magners League.

“The injury took a while to get over but now I’m getting back to the same kind of fitness I had last year, I just need to find the form.

“We’re second in the Magners League at the moment which is something all the players are excited about. We’ve also got Bath away this weekend then at home next weekend before we really focus on the David Lloyd 1872 Cup.

“It was a great when the 1872 Cup was resurrected last year, it helps promote both games to the general public and is great bragging material.“

With Glasgow now just six points behind league leaders Munster, and the David Lloyd 1872 Cup clashes still to come over Christmas and New Year, Moray can’t wait for the next half of the Magners League to get underway.

“We’ve never been in this position before so the guys are both focussed on achieving something special and we’re wary of the threat we now pose to every team in the league.

“There’s now no reason why we can’t achieve our aim of improving on last year’s fifth place finish. We’re an ambitious bunch of guys and we want to bring success for Glasgow.

“When I spoke about Celtic earlier, they are a successful club, and if we want to build ourselves into a club like that then we need to achieve something special and I feel we’re on the cusp of it right now.”