Leinster inspiration for Weir’s Warriors

DUNCAN WEIR is sitting in the canteen at Scotstoun when the call comes through from Ireland.

Located in the West End of Glasgow, the Warriors have used the state of the art venue as their training base since 2009 and they will call it home on match days from next season on.

Replete with blue running track, modern stands and top-class gym and training facilities, it is concrete proof of the leap the Glasgow outfit is in the process of making.

This time last year their European ambitions were behind them and they ended the last Magners League second from bottom. It isn’t that long since there were genuine fears for the professional game’s future in the nation’s biggest city.

Now? Sean Lineen’s side stand fourth in the Pro12 table and host Leinster in their rented digs at Firhill this Sunday looking for the win that could help propel them into the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup for the first time.

Star lock Richie Gray will be lost to Sale next summer but a host of others, Weir included, have seen enough progress to sign on the dotted line for another season or two. Rory Lamont has rejoined from Toulon and brother Sean will follow the same trail from Scarlets.

With Celtic and Rangers on their doorstep, not to mention Partick Thistle and Queens Park, Glasgow will always be first and foremost a soccer city — but the punters are beginning to have their heads turned by the oval brigade’s strides.

“There are a lot of rugby clubs around Glasgow but most people would only ever got to a few Warriors games,” said Weir, who was once on the books at Parkhead. “I was the same when I was a kid but there is a buzz about it now and about Scottish rugby in general.

“Edinburgh are doing well too and we sold out Firhill for the 1872 [Cup] match against them over the Christmas. One of the stands has already sold out for the Leinster game at the weekend. Good things are happening on and off the pitch.”

Changes have swept through the club’s offices too. Nathan Bombrys has come on board as managing director after stints at Sale and the SRU while Fergus Wallace was named the club’s business development manager last November.

A former player who represented Glasgow district in their first Heineken campaign, it is Wallace’s job to improve the links with local schools and clubs and fronts the outfit’s entire commercial operation.

Leinster’s visit brings him face to face with the ideal blueprint.

“Glasgow has always been a sleeping giant but it is starting to raise its head now,” Wallace explained. “Leinster are a great example of how to do things. They used to have 1,200 season ticket holders, now they have something like 12,000.

“Their whole philosophy is great. They had 44,000 at the Aviva Stadium for the Bath game before Christmas. It is just a great story and we would like to think that we are going in the right direction.”

There are any number of lessons to be learned from their visitors. Leinster may still draw the majority of their players from the traditional private school circuit but players like Sean O’Brien and young Mark Flanagan are beginning to file in from the provinces.

Glasgow, by way of contrast, has yet to produce a single player from its non fee-paying schools that has gone on to represent the national side. The gospel clearly needs spreading outside the usual well-heeled enclaves.

A win on Sunday would help but Glasgow still have some way to go to match Leinster on the pitch as well as off judging by the ease with which they were brushed aside by Joe Schmidt’s side last November.

“The intensity that Leinster brought to it, especially at the contact, was just incredible,” said Weir. “It was the best I have ever encountered in that first half. Everyone wanted the ball, whether they were locks, props or centres: it didn’t matter.”

The bar has been set.