By Graham Bean

Copyright scotsman

Jack Dempsey is about to begin his fifth season with Glasgow Warriors but the Scottish weather still causes him some angst. Dempsey has spent the last few months rehabbing a hamstring injury which meant much of his summer was spent in the gym at Scotstoun. The end justified the means because the Scotland No 8 was able to avoid surgery and make his comeback in Glasgow Warriors’ friendly win over Northampton Saints – a welcome return for the hard-running ball player who is such an important player for club and country. Having said that, his downtime in the sun was shorter than it should have been, which is tough for a native Australian who grew up near Manly Beach and spent his summers surfing. “I think one thing I’ve learnt since moving over here is you don’t want to get injured over summer because it’s different to back home,” said Dempsey, ruefully. “We all know what winter’s like over here, for 10 months of the year! Your summer is almost more valuable compared to Australia.” Team-mate Duncan Weir helped Dempsey overcome the summertime blues, joining him in the gym as he worked through his own injury woes. “I knew what I was walking into and me and with Duncy it was just kind of like big brother, little brother,” said Dempsey. “He was rehabbing his shoulder, I was rehabbing my hamstring. We were in at Scotstoun a lot. Then they throw you a week off here, a week there. Overall I got about three weeks off, spread out whereas normally you get your four or five in a block. “So I did a bit of Euro travelling and just following the Lions as a fan. They were playing against a team I used to play for and teams I used to play against. I really enjoyed doing all that – it was a very good reset and I’m just itching to get back in on it.” All being well, Dempsey will make his return to league action in Friday’s United Rugby Championship opener at home to the Sharks. He last pulled on a Glasgow jersey in a competitive setting when turned out against Harlequins in the Champions Cup at the Stoop on January 18. He joined up with the Scotland squad for the Six Nations soon after and played in the first four matches, against Italy, Ireland, England and Wales and it was during the win over the Welsh at Murrayfield on March 8 that he felt a twinge. “Thirty minutes into the Wales game I felt something in there,” explained Dempsey. “I had an old surgery on it, so there is scar tissue and every now and then it will flare up. In the heat of a Test match, with the adrenaline and everything, you don’t think too much about it, so I played on and then just about the first play of the second half, 41 minutes in, I felt it go again. “I played the rest of the game, we got the win and there was nothing in the data in terms of GPS and stuff; no red flags. So we trained the first couple of days before France, we were getting ready to go to Paris and it just didn’t really turn the corner. “At the back end of the Six Nations, you’re dealing with a few different niggles and you just kind of get on with it. But obviously when you’re dealing with a hamstring and you can’t get up to a certain speed, that caused us to scan it. We scanned it on the Wednesday and we were flying out on the Thursday. On the Thursday morning we made a decision that it wasn’t good to go. “Then you go through the process of it all; what’s the decision going to be. You see the specialist, you do all that. And then for me it was more about trying to avoid surgery, get back for the big games here [at Glasgow] to try to back up the title defence. I couldn’t get back in time for that, so we just made the decision to keep going until summer.” Surgery was avoided but the injury didn’t recover as quickly as hoped and Dempsey missed the remainder of the season as the Warriors’ defence of their URC title was ended at the semi-final stage by Leinster in Dublin. It wasn’t the only thing he missed out on. His consistency across the title-winning season and his form for Scotland would undoubtedly have put him on Andy Farrell’s radar but the injury put paid to his hopes of going on the British and Irish Lions’ tour of Australia with his Warriors team-mates Sione Tuipulotu, Huw Jones and Scott Cummings. A fourth Warrior, Zander Fagerson, was selected but was ruled out by a calf injury while Gregor Brown and Rory Sutherland joined later. “That was obviously one of the more disappointing things,” said Dempsey, a former Wallaby who made his Scotland debut in 2022 after taking advantage of a law change which allows players to swap countries if they have spent three years out of international rugby and have a strong link to their new nation, which he does through a Scottish grandparent. “You’re looking at that Six Nations with that one extra game against France, trying to put your hand up and build a campaign [to be selected]. I had just come back from my shoulder as well which [I’d injured] against the Springboks. I had only played five games up until that Six Nations after the [2024 URC] final. “I was already coming off an injury and you’re trying to put your hand up. It was definitely a factor. The thing is I had been through it before so you get conditioned to it in a way and you’ve got to be thankful for your blessings. “In terms of the decision to not have to have surgery, that was a really big positive for me. Then to enjoy some time off in summer as well and do all that and kick on and get a good pre-season, probably for the first time since Franco’s first year here. “It was definitely tough, seeing Sione and Shuggy get announced there having played with them a lot at both levels and knowing their backgrounds. There’s that aspect of it but you’ve got to be realistic at the same time.” Dempsey lost almost two years of his career to a serious hamstring injury in his early 20s and his reluctance to undergo more surgery was understandable. So too was the decision not to return too quickly. “It’s kind of like you’re dealing with the old ghosts as well; it’s never going to be fully back to what it was. But your body adapts and strengthens in other ways to deal with it. So it was more as we restarted that rehab again, you’ve got to kind of conquer all those other things which maybe if you didn’t go through earlier you might have gone through faster. “We got to the point where it was for the betterment of my mid to long term future to not rush back and get emotional about coming back for a quarter-final against the Stormers and stuff, not being 100 per cent and then risking things. Or trying to get back for a summer tour, not being 100 per cent when they can give other guys a go. “I can sit here now, look back and think it was the smartest thing to do. Obviously you never know with surgery if it would have been better or worse but I’m happy with how it’s gone.” The big thing for Dempsey was being able to reproduce the little bursts of speed that have been his trademark and he was happy to come through the pre-season game against Northampton unscathed. “It feels good. If you break it down, I’m 31 now, I am who I am, I know what my strengths are, I know what my weaknesses are. I don’t have to be out there running like Steyno [Kyle Steyn] on the wing and reaching high speeds and stuff like that but my super strength has always been my first three or four steps, in and around contact, getting up in defence and ball carrying in contact.” Dempsey was one of several frontline players who were absent at points during the second half of the season as Leinster wrested Glasgow’s title from them and dumped them out of Europe. Zander and Matt Fagerson, Cummings, Tuipulotu and Jones also succumbed to injury for long stretches. They are no longer defending champions and Dempsey thinks that could suit them. “We’ve almost gone back under the radar now as a club,” he said. “We’ve gone from the underdogs who won, went on the road, did the whole fairytale, to defending it. Last season everyone was coming here to beat us and every week, we’d go on the road and people were gunning for us as champs “Now Leinster have gone on and done their thing, we can kind of go back to being naturally what we prefer. Although of course it would have been really nice to just be a part of the title defence.” The good news for Glasgow Warriors supporters is that Franco Smith is sticking around. The head coach had been linked with several high profile jobs, including Wales, Leicester Tigers and the Bulls, and revealed himself that he had spoken to England about a potential position with the RFU, but it was announced earlier this month that he had signed a new contract with Glasgow, tying him to the club until 2028. On the same day, it was also confirmed that Townsend has penned a deal to remain as Scotland coach until after the 2027 World Cup and Dempsey is pleased both are staying. “I think from a player’s point of view, as long as they’re both around, it’s a positive,” he said. “It really is. I know there’s been chatter around the last six months about Franco, where he’s going, all these teams being rumoured. But from a Glasgow point of view, it’s good just to have him in the building. That’s the main thing, to have him around the boys. “We don’t want to be chopping and changing all the time. Having that consistency in there is for the betterment of Scottish rugby as well, even though we’re just one half of the two clubs. The development, not chopping and changing. Or a coach comes in, does a good job, gets bought out by someone else, and then heads off and then we’ve got to get someone else in. “It’s real mature decision making, I think, for the long term of Scottish rugby. And then with Gregor, from me working with him personally, he is a very smart tactical coach, very switched on and very knowledgeable about the landscape as well and the players.”