Murchie ready to get stuck in to Rainbow Cup

Glasgow Warriors Assistant Coach Pete Murchie has described the Rainbow Cup as an opportunity for the club to press the reset button and to get stuck into a set of meaningful and challenging fixtures.

The Warriors begin their Rainbow Cup campaign this Saturday away to Benetton, and with both sides welcoming back their international contingents Murchie anticipates that it will be quite a different fixture to that which was played at Scotstoun back in March.

He told glasgowwarriors.org: “The teams that will go out at the weekend will be fairly different from the last time we played each other.

“Then, the final score line pointed to a comfortable win (46-25), but it was a tight game and we didn’t pull away until the last 20 minutes – it was close. We know Saturday will be a tough game and playing Benetton on their patch adds to that. We’ll have to be right on it.”

Not only are Glasgow going into a brand-new competition, but there is the added dynamic of three new law variations for the players to adapt to.

Murchie continued: “It will be interesting to see how our opponents [throughout the Rainbow Cup] will adapt to the law variations.

“We’ve never played to these rules before, and no team in this league has, so there is not yet any evidence to look at on how these variations will be interpreted.

“However, we have been doing a lot of scenario planning on how we will interpret those laws to make sure we know how we’ll react when they arise. We expect they could happen one, two, three, four times in a game so we want to be ready to react quickly.

“[That being said], we know we need to go and play at our very best to win [against Benetton].”

In other news this week the club has confirmed that Scotland international prop Al Dickinson will be joining Pete Murchie as Assistant Coach, focussing on scrummaging for the new season.

Murchie welcomed Dickonson’s appointment, with the pair having represented Scotland on three occasions together previously.

He said: “I know Al well and he’s a great bloke. His appointment is great news for the club.

“He has a fair amount of experience with the FOSROC Scottish Rugby Academy and international teams and has had a year at Bristol Bears. He will have good learnings from the English Premiership that he will bring to Glasgow.

“He will be really good for our forwards and he’ll make a good impression.”

With Murchie’s specific focus on skills development and Dickinson honing the skills of players in the scrum, something vital to these coaches roles is dovetailing their work with the other coaches in the squad. Murchie has been relishing this since taking up his position full time in March.

He said: “My role is varied, and it involves a lot of different aspects.

“I’ve been working on restarts and counter-attack and driving our skills development work. I draw up and plan the specific skills for each block – the next being the Rainbow Cup – and tie it in with the other activities throughout the week.

“I work closely with the other coaches to understand their needs for the coming blocks and how they want to deliver some of the skills work. We work together a lot and the main goal is to make sure core skills are improving individually and collectively – be it catch-and-pass, tackle technique, or contact work [amongst others].

“All in all, it’s great to be back with the club, the players have been spot on in applying themselves to what I’m trying to do.

“Right now, though, it’s good to have everyone back together, which is something we haven’t had a great deal of this season. We’re working hard to do well in the Rainbow Cup to make sure we can be there or there about come the end of the season.”