Duncan injured an ankle in Glasgow's final home game of the season against Opsreys at Scotstoun in April.

Initial thoughts were that he would be out for up to six months with the knock, but he has recovered well and is keen to play in the opening RaboDirect PRO12 meeting with Cardiff Blues at the start of next month.

"That is the goal," said Duncan in today's Evening Times. "We will see how my ankle reacts to the volume of training we do over the next couple of weeks.

"But I am hoping I will be back a bit sooner than expected. I am looking forward to the new season. I'm hoping I am going to be injury-free and will be able to get a good run of games.

"When I was 17 I was out with a knee injury for a whole season, but this is the longest I have spent out as a professional player.

"It has been frustrating. But the care I have received has been great and it is now just a matter of the ankle being right and not rushing things.

"We strengthened the squad in the summer and I think we can build on the success we had last season and make sure we learn from the mistakes.

"We are due a good Heineken Cup run and there will be a lot of focus on that. We want to do well once again domestically, but we also want to do well in Europe.

"I am not sure why we struggled last season. I thought we prepared really well for the games, but it was always so close.

"We always seemed to be that seven-point margin behind and just failed to convert. In the league we were really clinical and won all our tight matches.

"That was the difference between the league and the Heineken last year. We are ready to put that right - and have a good game to start with against the champions over in Toulon."