Ollie Smith knows Glasgow need need fast start against Ospreys

Ollie Smith has urged Glasgow to focus on making a fast start as they bid to clip Ospreys’ wings in Saturday’s United Rugby Championship clash in Swansea.

The Welsh side romped to a 24-0 victory at home to Zebre last weekend and full-back Smith recalls how they opened up a 15-0 lead on their way to a 32-31 win at Scotstoun in the last meeting between the teams in March.

“It’s going to be a difficult match,” said Smith. “Travelling away from home is always difficult in this league. Ospreys are playing a good brand of rugby, they had a good win against Zebre last week so it’s going to be a tough game in tough conditions probably.

“As we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks, especially last week, Ospreys start pretty well. They scored two early tries and it was the same when we played them at Scotstoun last year.

“We got stung a bit in the first 20 minutes so there’s a lot of focus on the first 20 minutes from us, coming out the blocks fast and starting the game from there. It comes back to being ready to go from the first whistle and not taking too long to get into the game.”

Warriors head coach Franco Smith has made nine changes from the team that started last weekend’s 49-0 demolition of Dragons but Scotland forwards Zander Fagerson, Jack Dempsey and Rory Darge, all of whom are battling to return from injury in time for the upcoming autumn internationals, have not been included in the 23.