JACKSON COLUMN: Warriors are leading Scotland's battle cry

Scotland's squad contained no fewer than 18 of Glasgow's finest, a suitably massive tribute to the quality and scale of their home-grown players under a chain of coaching command headed by Gregor Townsend.

No other country placed quite as heavy a reliance on one PRO12 team. Ireland's squad contained 13 from Leinster and eleven from Munster. Wales, with almost a third of their 34-man pool drawn from outside the four regions, picked nine Ospreys and eight Scarlets.

When Warren Gatland went into his first match as Wales coach, England at Twickenham in 2008, he picked 13 Ospreys - Lee Byrne, Shane Williams, Sonny Parker, Gavin Henson, James Hook, Mike Phillips, Duncan Jones, Huw Bennett, Adam Jones, Ian Gough, Alun-Wyn Jones, Jonathan Thomas and Ryan Jones.

A 14^th, Ian Evans, sat on the bench. Of those, only two are still there - Alun-Wyn Jones and the evergreen loosehead prop, Duncan Jones.

The Warriors would almost certainly have had 15 players among Scotland's 23 against Tonga in Kilmarnock last week had injury not eliminated Adam Ashe, Mark Bennett, Sean Maitland and Euan Murray.

A fortnight earlier, when the Scots gave Vern Cotter's coaching reign a stylish launch with five tries in the 41-31 win over Argentina, the Warriors provided six of the seven backs - Stuart Hogg, Maitland, Bennett, Alex Dunbar, Tommy Seymour and Finn Russell, leaving skipper Greig Laidlaw the solitary non-Warrior.

Glasgow's contribution to the November Tests extended beyond Scotland to Fiji (Nikola Matawalu, Leone Nakarawa, Jerry Yanuyanutawa) and Canada (DTH van der Merwe). That brought the Warriors' international contingent to 22 which put a severe strain on their attempt to go one better than last season when Leinster made home advantage count in the GUINNESS PRO12 Final.

With Ali Kellock making a welcome return from injury, Townsend's depleted force reached the final quarter level at 9-9 after a trio of Peter Horne penalties.

The prospect of a losing bonus point, quite something in the circumstances, vanished when substitute back row forward Rory Pitman scored the only try of the match in the final minutes.

As proof that every cloud has a silver lining, the Warriors marked the occasion by introducing two newcomers to the PRO12 - 21-year-old scrum half Ali Price and Glenn Bryce, a 23-year-old full back from Alloa.

After three appearances off the bench, Zander Fagerson made his first start at the sharp end - a tighthead prop making his bow at the tender age of 18. Even Jason Leonard had to wait until he was 19 before making his senior debut, for Saracens in the Second Division of the English League in the late Eighties.

The return of their Test match brigade coincides with the Warriors preparing for arguably the biggest period of their existence. Six matches in the next five weeks starting with the Dragons at Scotstoun on Friday night will go a long way towards shaping their season on both the domestic and European fronts.

After the back-to-back Champions' Cup ties against Toulouse, the big fixtures keep coming - Munster at home on the Saturday before Christmas before the Yuletide derbies against Edinburgh for the 1872 Cup.

Townsend's sole concern this week will be to start reclaiming the territory lost in Llanelli last Friday night. On the same night Munster made the most of their trip to a different part of South Wales by securing a maximum point win over the Dragons at Rodney Parade.

Munster's fourth straight win lifted them into third place. Ulster, too, have won four in a row, ending the Ospreys' unbeaten run in Belfast and leaving the former double champions from Swansea hanging on at the top by virtue of having won seven matches to Ulster's six.

Ireland's leading Irish contenders collide at Thomond Park on Friday night when Munster will be ready to bust a collective gut to even up the score with their old northern rivals after last season. Ulster beat them twice, 29-19 at Ravenhill in the New Year and 19-17 in Limerick four months later.

Saturday brings another mighty fixture liable to have a shuddering impact on the play-off positions - Leinster against Ospreys at the RDS. The visitors, twice triumphant at the venue in PRO12 Finals, must make the journey without their internationals.

Leinster, thankful to have left Treviso on Sunday with a draw, may easily have lost had Jayden Hayward not missed two late goal attempts. Now that they have stopped the rot after losing their first seven matches, Treviso will go to Cardiff on Friday looking for a win.

While Ireland rejoice at having claimed the scalps of South Africa and Australia, their three-match series over, Wales, as per usual, are involved in a fourth fixture. After a late collapse against the Wallabies and an even more spectacular one against the All Blacks, their best PRO12 players will be taking a last shot at the Springboks before rejoining their regions.

Coming up for the top five (* European Champions' Cup):

Ospreys (1^st, 30 pts):

Leinster away, Saturday; *Racing Metro home, December 6; *Racing Metro, away, December 13; Ulster, home, December 20; Scarlets, home, December 27; Scarlets, away, January 3.

Ulster (2^nd, 30 pts)

Munster away, Friday; *Scarlets, home December 6; *Scarlets, away, December 14; Ospreys, away, December 20; Connacht, home, December 26; Leinster, away, January 3.

Munster (3^rd, 28 pts):

Ulster (home, Friday evening), *Clermont (home, December 6), *Clermont (away, December 14), Glasgow Warriors (away, December 20), Leinster (home,
December 26), Connacht (away, January 1).

Glasgow Warriors (4^th, 27 pts)
Dragons, home, Friday evening; *Toulouse, away, December 7; *Toulouse, home, December 13; Munster, home, December 20; Edinburgh, home, December 27; Edinburgh, away, January 1.

Leinster (5^th, 24 pts)

Ospreys (home, Friday evening), *Harlequins (away, December 7), *Harlequins (home, December 13), Connacht (home, December 19), Munster (away, December 26), Ulster (home, January 3).

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