Guest Blogger: Warriors unsung heroes

Guest blogger The Pen returns to discuss the Warriors unsung heroes.

Every team has their superstars.

You know the kind of player I mean. 75th minute, not a sign of a try before bang, the superstar has gets the ball up in his own in goal area, beaten 15 with a combination of deft chips over the head, spins and hand-offs before swan-diving from the 22 to place the ball gracefully on the try line slap bang between the posts. The conversion is scored, the crowd go home happy and the superstars face is the one that adorns the newspapers the next day.

What the picture doesn’t tell you is about the hard working centre who managed to rip the ball off the opposing player via last ditch tackle, or the back rower who made that tackle.

Glasgow have two such players in their ranks who never seem to get the recognition that they deserve. Both are Scotland internationals and integral parts of the Warriors squad who won the 2014/15 Pro 12 title.

Peter Horne and Rob Harley are the unsung heroes of the Warriors side. They give 100% every time they play in the blue and black and much of their work goes unrecognised.

During the 14/15 season, Glasgow’s first choice centres were Mark Bennett and Alex Dunbar. As the season progressed, Dunbar picked up a serious knee injury which would end his season and shortly after that, Bennett was ruled out. Many fans felt that without at least one of these two players, the chance of being Champions was slipping. Enter Horne.

He shone when given the opportunity and he played some fantastic rugby. A hat-trick against the Cardiff Blues and a conversion from out on the wing to give the Warriors an invaluable draw against Leinster were among the highlights and he was rightly named in the Pro12 dream team for the season.

What made Horne’s success all the more astonishing was that in the summer of 2013 he suffered a horrendous knee injury on his Scotland debut that robbed him and Glasgow of his talents for a year.

Harley on the other hand is one of these guys who is almost ever present in the Warriors squad and yet so much of his work goes under the radar. He is effective at the breakdown and his tackle success is extremely high but these are often things that are forgotten at the end of the game when the backs have scored tries aplenty.

At only 26, he has amassed over 130 appearances for the club so there is no denying that he is a mainstay of the side but surprisingly he only has 18 Scotland caps. He’s probably been very unfortunate to have come along at a time when the national side has been able to call up guys like Strauss, Hardie, Barclay and Brown to name a few.

He’s also captained the side on numerous occasions and seems it’s clear that working alongside former Warriors captain Al Kellock has rubbed off on Rob because it’s clear to see that Harley has lot of the same traits as ‘Big Al’. His leadership skills are very similar and Harley can often be seen rallying the troops when required.

What both of these players embody in a Glasgow shirt is the pride and passion that Glasgow fans love. At Glasgow, there is a saying “Privileged to play rugby” and I would struggle to think of many players who seem to have taken that to heart more than these two.

Horne and Harley may never be “superstars” of the world game but what I will say is this. I’d take a team full of 15 guys like these two players because you know that what you will get is 100% commitment and work rate at all times.

Of course, now that I’ve written this, Pete has broken a bone in his hand and won’t see action for 6 weeks and Rob is out with a knee injury so it’s good to know that my ability to curse players is still alive and well. Think I might make my next piece about our opponents!

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