‘Some unit’ - How Glasgow Warriors debutant stood up to Springboks duo

Kerr Yule, who turned 20 in the summer, was given his chance on Friday night and received glowing reviews from both head coach Smith and captain Stafford McDowall, who played alongside Yule in the midfield in the home win over the Sharks.

It must have been a daunting debut for the Livingston-born player who was up against two experienced Springboks centres as Glasgow defeated the South African visitors 35-19 in their URC opener but Yule didn’t shy away from the challenge of taking on Francois Venter and Lukhanyo Am.

“I thought Kerr was good,” said Smith. “He found his feet. He received some hard tackles from experienced campaigners. The two centres, their combined age is about four times his. So he did well to manage that and to stay in the game.

“I thought the way that the rest of the team helped him to adapt was really good. He's definitely made his mark and he now understands what it takes.”

‘He’s lifting more than most of us’

Yule, who is Scotland’s most capped player at under-20 level, looks physically equipped to deal with the rigours of the URC and this is perhaps not surprising given his father, Stuart Yule, is the Scotland team’s strength and conditioning coach.

McDowall has been watching Yule’s progress for some time and thought he was “brilliant” against the Sharks.

“I know his dad through doing the national team stuff and have followed him through the under-20s,” said McDowall. “He's obviously got quite a lot about him to come out as the 20s’ most capped player ever. We've all watched him improve through training in the last two or three years and improve with the 20s and turn into a key player for them and eventually he'll turn into a key player for us and it was good to see him get his first game.

“He's some unit. He's definitely got the strength from his dad, I think. I see him in the gym and he's lifting more than most of us. He's a great guy, he's got a real level head and you can see he was really calm when it got tough out there.”

Leinster loss is good for Glasgow

A good night for Glasgow Warriors was made even better by the news that Leinster had been hammered 35-0 by the Stormers. Both Leinster and the Sharks finished above Glasgow in the URC standings last season so the club will be pleased to steal a march on them even if it is very early days.

McDowall admitted they’d had to work hard to pull clear of feisty opponents. Glasgow had two tries disallowed in the first half and the Sharks reduced their lead to just two points with 13 minutes remaining before the Warriors pulled clear.

“It was tough, especially with us having some young players out there,” said McDowall who was among the try-scorers. “And sometimes when you miss a few opportunities or a few calls don't go your way in your first half, we could have easily folded and potentially we would have in years gone by.

“But I think we're a different team now and we really kept our composure well in that second half. So we're really proud of the boys the way they dug in.”

It’s a trip to Italy next for Glasgow who take on Benetton in Treviso this Saturday.