Inverness Caley Thistle striker George Oakley excited to see how Scotland prop Zaner Fagerson and Glasgow Warriors prepare for pre-season friendly against Worcester at Caledonian Stadium as professional rugby comes to Highland capital
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George Oakley says it is nice to see clubs working together across sports as Inverness Caley Thistle prepare to play host to the Glasgow Warriors.
For the first time in four years, the Warriors will take a "home" pre-season game on the road next Friday when they face the Worcester Warriors at the Caledonian Stadium.
It may make a nice change for Oakley and the rest of the Caley Jags squad to see another team putting the hard yards in on the turf in the Highland capital, and Oakley believes it will be interesting to see how athletes from a different sport prepare for game day.
"It's all about professionalism," Oakley said after meeting Glasgow and Scotland prop Zander Fagerson at the Caledonian Stadium.
"You can see that Zander's very motivated from the way he speaks, and you can see by the look on his face that he's ready for next week and the season ahead.
"I wouldn't want to stand in front of him, so good luck to him and to his team.
"It will be good to watch, and we can see how they act on the pitch as well. In any kind of sport at the highest standard it's good to see what they do before a game.
"They're obviously in their pre-season, so I was talking to Zander and he told me what they were doing. I just looked at him and thought 'wow, okay, that does sound hard'. He's looking forward to it though, so it will be good."
Glasgow Warriors play Worcester Warriors at the Caledonian Stadium on Friday, September 2 – get tickets here.
On an individual level next Friday's match will mark a first for Oakley as he has never seen a rugby match in person before – but he is confident a good crowd of Caley Thistle players will head along to the match.
"I'm not going to lie, I used to play rugby quite a bit when I was at school, and I enjoyed it quite a lot," he recalled.
"For me it was just fun at school, and then I went into my football career. A lot of my friends still play, but I've actually never been to watch a rugby game.
"I think a few of us will be coming down to watch next Friday. We can go and watch the game, enjoy ourselves then go home and get a good night's sleep to be ready for our own game the next day.
"A lot of us are just around the corner, so when an event happens up here it's quite nice to get a couple of the boys to come down and watch, and see what it's all about."
Bouncing back from defeat
Before the Caledonian Stadium gets taken over by one of Scotland's two professional rugby clubs, Oakley will be hoping to celebrate a win there this Saturday.
Inverness host Morton fresh off the back of a disappointing 4–1 defeat away at Partick Thistle, and the striker says things must improve – but believes it could prove to be the jolt to the system early on that ICT needed.
"We didn't expect the result against Partick, I don't think they expected it –no-one did," he explained.
"It was a shock to the system, but it's the way you bounce back from those results that matters.
"To be honest, you would probably rather get those out of the way and learn from them. Then you can move on and make sure it doesn't happen again, because we don't want to have that feeling again this season.
"You know the feeling, and you're determined not to let that happen again, so it's good to get it out of the way early doors.
"Now we just want to move on, and when Saturday comes we'll want to get the win and make everyone forget what happened against Partick."
