Glasgow Warriors resigned to losing another international player

The 31-year-old has been linked with the French Pro D2 strugglers Biarritz Olympique and looks set to become the latest international player to leave Scotstoun.

Scotland quintet Jack Dempsey, Huw Jones, Adam Hastings, Jamie Bhatti and Johnny Matthews have all secured new clubs for next season, with only South African back-rower Ruwald van der Merwe so far lined up as a new arrival for the Warriors.

Scott Forrest, the Glasgow assistant coach, said it was looking increasingly likely that Vailanu would be heading to pastures new.

“Yeah, unfortunately it's one of those ones that again, just around the balance of our squad, there's a good chance that Sione will move on at the end of the season,” said Forrest. “I don't know if there's any confirmation of where he's going yet but I think there's been discussions going on but potentially he's going to move on at the end of the season, it looks like.”

Part of title-winning squad

Vailanu’s time at Glasgow has been disrupted by injury but he was part of the squad which won the United Rugby Championship in 2023-24, playing seven games in the first half of the campaign before being sidelined.

He has appeared five times this season and is currently in South Africa with the Warriors as they look to bounce back from last weekend’s heavy defeat by the Lions in Johannesburg. They take on the Stormers in Cape Town this Saturday, a match that sees first play second in the URC.

Glasgow, the league leaders, are four points clear of the Stormers and will have captain Kyle Steyn and fly-half Hastings back for the match. The game may come too soon for George Horne, Scott Cummings and Matt Fagerson, however. “They're still not 100 per cent but we're going to give them as much time as possible,” said Forrest, who revealed that head coach Franco Smith had held off from telling the players the team in the hope one, some or all of the trio make it.

Back at sea level

The Warriors are already assured of a play-off place but know that hanging on to top spot will give them home advantage in the knockout rounds. It has been a testing couple of weeks for Glasgow who were eliminated from the Champions Cup quarter-finals by Toulon at Scotstoun before going down 54-12 to the Lions at Ellis Park.

They have now returned to sea level at least which has made life easier.

“Not being at altitude is definitely better for everyone, although today it felt like we were at home because there was torrential rain in training,” said Forrest. “They've had a lot of rain here, I believe it's to turn tomorrow and it should be better at the weekend.”

Conditions should be more to Glasgow’s liking and Forrest thinks the game with the Stormers will be decided by whoever comes out on top physically.

“I think it's a pretty simple message that the team that's going to win the most collisions this weekend is going to have a pretty good chance of winning the game.”