DAN Carter and other star names have been rested from the Racing 92 team to play Glasgow at Rugby Park today - but Warriors winger Tommy Seymour has insisted the French team will still be formidable opposition.

Racing qualified for the quarter-finals of the European Champions Cup last week, allowing them to give World Rugby player of the year Carter the weekend off. Glasgow’s own hopes of reaching the knockout stages were effectively ended when they lost to Northampton last Sunday, but they still aim to go out on a high in their final Pool 3 game.

“We take this as an opportunity to put in a good performance now,” said Seymour, who is back in the Warriors team after spending several weeks on the sidelines with a hamstring injury. “We’ve had good performances in large sections.

“From a spectator point of view, I thought we should maybe have won that game [against Northampton] a little bit more comfortably. This weekend is about going out and getting the confidence and the morale boost we can use to move past this and going back into the league.”

Seymour missed out on the defeat by Racing in Paris a fortnight ago, so might have been looking forward to playing against Carter. But he explained that although he always likes taking on the best players in the world, he was happy that the All Blacks’ World Cup winner would not be in the Racing line-up for the match in Kilmarnock.

“It is great to play against the best in the world, and Dan Carter is that. But when you have a guy like that on the other side there’s maybe a sigh of relief [that he’s not playing] because of that he can do with a ball. But there are other 10s who are good too.

“It’s probably more of a shame for the fans - people who want to come here and have probably bought tickets to go and watch Dan Carter. But as a group of players we’re mindful of just getting on and playing the Racing team that is there. We will play the people who are on the park.

“Can you name the bad ones?,” he continued when asked if he thought the players selected by Racing were in any way substandard. “With Racing’s depth in their European squad you’re talking about individuals who would go to other clubs and be the stars. Racing have given themselves this luxury by the way they’ve played in the group.

“There are other ways of looking at it. The individuals coming in have class and quality, and they might have a point to prove for getting starting spots in the quarter-finals and the league.

“You sometimes almost fear the individual who hasn’t been playing more than the one who has, because he has a lot more to prove. We’ll be looking at it from that angle.”

Ryan Wilson, who was cleared this week of a charge of grabbing an opponent’s testicles, has been left out of the Glasgow side. Head coach Gregor Townsend explained that was partly because the forward’s week had been disrupted by the need to go to London to attend a disciplinary hearing, and partly because of a shoulder injury that would have put his place in doubt anyway.

“The case was dismissed pretty quickly,” Townsend said. “I was disappointed that it went to a hearing, especially the nature of the accusation and the embarrassment for someone like Ryan.

“Case dismissed. It disrupted our week, which was not great.”

Glasgow Warriors (v Racing 92 at Rugby Park, today, 5.30pm): S Hogg; T Naiyaravoro, A Dunbar, S Johnson, T Seymour; F Russell, A Price; A Allan, S Mamukashvili, S Puafisi, G Peterson, J Gray, J Eddie, S Favaro, L Nakarawa. Substitutes: J Malcolm, J Yanuyanutawa, Z Fagerson, S Cummings, C Fusaro, G Hart, D Weir, L Jones.