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Prolific try-scoring hooker reveals why he's committed to Glasgow

By PA
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - APRIL 22: Johnny Matthews of Glasgow Warriors during the United Rugby Championship match between DHL Stormers and Glasgow Warriors at DHL Stadium on April 22, 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Ashley Vlotman/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

Free-scoring hooker Johnny Matthews revealed it was “a very easy decision” to extend his contract with Glasgow until the summer of 2026.

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The 30-year-old has become a firm fans’ favourite at Scotstoun, with 34 tries in 60 appearances to date putting him fifth in the Warriors’ all-time try-scoring charts.

Matthews made his full Scotland debut against Romania at last year’s World Cup in France and is currently the top scorer in the BKT United Rugby Championship with 10 touchdowns for Franco Smith’s on-form side.

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The Liverpool-born forward joined Glasgow in 2019 and is delighted to have signed a new deal.

“It was a very easy decision to renew, to be honest,” Matthews told Warriors’ website.

“It’s a great group to be a part of, both on and off the pitch, and I’m just delighted to be able to commit my future to the club.

“We try and play a brand of rugby that’s attacking and fits the tradition of Glasgow rugby, and everyone wants to be involved in a team like that during their careers.

“Franco and the coaches make it a really easy team to fit into, and you can see the hard work everyone puts in by the results we’ve been picking up over the season so far.

“We’re a really tight-knit playing squad, too, which makes coming in to training each day that much more enjoyable. We all really get along, from the players to the coaches to the backroom team – everyone from top to bottom is all reading from the same page and it’s a great place to play.

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“I just want to keep playing well and keep putting my hand up for selection – anything that comes after that is just the icing on the cake.”

Smith is delighted to have retained the services of someone he deems a key member of his squad.

“Johnny is someone who, from day one, has fully bought into everything that we are looking to build at this club,” said the head coach.

“We firmly believe that good people make good rugby players, and Johnny embodies this. His work ethic and determination to be the best version of himself, as well as to drive standards in those around him, are attributes that both we as coaches and his team-mates value.

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“He works hard to earn each opportunity and he contributes both on and off the field to our environment, and we look forward to continuing to aid his development for the next couple of seasons.”

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J
JW 56 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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