Glasgow won’t lose sleep, Zebre thrashing is just a blow to their pride

The fact that Glasgow Warriors have won all 22 of their competitive fixtures against Zebre — plenty of them by some considerable margin — meant that Saturday’s 31-0 defeat in the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi was always going to catch the eye.
It was, however, categorically not a night for Franco Smith or anyone else connected with the Warriors to be losing any sleep over.
Nobody wants to be put away with so much to spare by such a thoroughly limited opponent, especially not a mere ten weeks after having claimed a league title in heroic style.
The truth is, though, that the whole context of Glasgow’s first pre-season outing bore about as much resemblance to events in Pretoria as George Horne does to JP du Preez.
For a start, a large number of the men who got them to that showpiece are not even back in the building, or only returned to training at the start of last week. The likes of Sione Tuipulotu, Kyle Steyn, Rory Darge, Scott Cummings, Sam Zander Fagerson and Johnny Matthews are only due to report for duty on Monday morning, Smith having allowed them one last blowout at Matt Fagerson’s Sunday wedding.
The side that fell apart in northern Italy was a rag-tag assortment of academy players and fringe men like Sean Kennedy and Duncan Weir, with a smattering of true front-liners such as Josh McKay and Tom Jordan to supply a hint of ballast. Some of those involved may not be seen in a first-team jersey again this season. And some might conceivably never play a competitive match for the club.
So, yes, this was a deeply disappointing performance, an error-strewn misery on both sides of the ball, but ultimately it meant very little if anything at all.
Nonetheless, a couple of important points were underlined, starting with the fact that the Warriors have a Du Preez-sized target on their backs this season. A couple of pre-match text conversations with Zebre players had confirmed just how desperate they were to land an early blow on last season’s big dog even with nothing material at stake. The Italians had a new coach to impress in Massimo Brunello, the man who drove such impressive returns with the national under-20 team, and for all he was quick to acknowledge the many flaws in his own side’s efforts, Smith made a point of underlining the improvement in an outfit who have won two league games in the last three seasons.
“Zebre were really good, much better than they’ve ever played against us,” he said. “I’m going to be honest about that. I’ve always thought they had weaknesses in their maul, they had weaknesses in physicality, they had weaknesses in their lack of resilience and endurance. I saw a completely different set-up here.
“Having been the performance director in Italy, this is what we intended it to be. It looks really, really well organised here. Yes, we made a lot of mistakes. We’re going to look at that and try to teach the young boys some things from it and take some of the lessons from it, obviously. But I must say, Zebre were a different team than we’ve ever played.
“The reason for this game was not to beat Zebre. Yes, we wanted to win it, but we want to start the next generation. We’re going to definitely be challenged with the fact that there are four internationals in the Autumn Series. Then there are fewer breaks this year leading into the Six Nations.
“The result we will use as an inspiration for us to realise that teams are going to come harder at us and we must understand that we are not the surprise package any more.”
The game should also have served as further reminder to the appropriate people as to the importance of properly positioning the A-team rugby which has been identified as the replacement development vehicle for the now defunct Super Series.
Details of what precisely this will look like are still incredibly thin on the ground, and no additional coaching resource appears to have been supplied to either of the professional teams as they bid to address a fixture list supposedly intended to offer them ten matches apiece.
It is to be hoped — fervently and continuously — that these games bear no resemblance to the absurd hotpotch of a fixture which saw a combined Edinburgh and Glasgow A team go down 38-0 to Black Lion back in April. Nobody within Murrayfield or Scotstoun was prepared to take responsibility for having organised the game, and little wonder, given the complete hiding to nothing presented to a collection of wholly inexperienced young Scottish lads up against two-thirds of the Georgian national team.
A-team rugby can be an excellent development tool, but only if the games are against an appropriate level of opposition — good enough to stretch, but not so much bigger or better that the whole thing becomes fatally lopsided. They must also take place at appropriate points in the season when pro-team squads are not already under pressure. That is the only way to ensure buy-in from coaches, and for players on either side to stand to gain anything from the experience.
These conversations will harden as and when we have sight of the fixtures, but for now Smith’s attentions turn to a second and final preparatory outing at home to Connacht on Saturday. He has already said he will resist the temptation to load up his side with all of the big names (“definitely not”), but supporters will be anxious to see signs of cohesion and solidity ahead of a potentially tricky first URC assignment away to Ulster on September 21.
No excuses can or will be accepted when we get to that one, but Zebre was nothing more than a blow to the Warriors’ pride.