Need to Know: Edinburgh v Glasgow Warriors, PRO14 match preview 2018/19

KO 5.15 at BT Murrayfield
Saturday 22nd December
Buy tickets here
Live on Premier Sports 1 *

• Head to heads in the backs favour the Warriors, in the pack it’s Edinburgh.
• Peter Horne will become the 10th player to make 150 appearances for Glasgow.
• The Brothers Horne are the Warriors to Watch.
• 11 of the 46 players will be featuring in an 1872 Cup match for the very first time.

Tale of the Tape:

BACKS
54   Tries   172
259   Appearances   592
30   1872 Cup appearances   45
25.0   Average age   27.3
3   Capped players   7

FORWARDS
900kg   Pack weight   893kg
639   Appearances   469
44   1872 Cup appearances   33
27.8   Average age   26.1
7   Capped players   5

SUBSTITUTES
176   Appearances   555
17   1872 Cup appearances   37
25.8   Average age   27.7
3   Capped players   7

Glasgow Greetings / Edinburgh Introductions:

Grant Stewart will become the 100th man to play in an 1872 Cup game for Glasgow. Kevin Bryce could also make his debut in this fixture (he was an unused substitute for Edinburgh at Scotstoun in 2016/17). Despite playing more than 50 times for the Warriors across 5 seasons this will be the first occasion that D’arcy Rae has tackled an 1872 Cup match (he has played against Edinburgh once before though – back in March 2015 when he was on loan to Benetton Treviso).

There will be 9 players making their inaugural 1872 Cup appearances for Edinburgh – Henry Pyrgos in the backs; Pierre Schoeman and Luke Hamilton in the forwards; while almost the entire bench are new to this sort of thing – David Cherry, Pietro Ceccarelli, Callum Hunter-Hill, Luke Crosbie, Simon Hickey and Juan Pablo Socino. Of course the first man mentioned does have previous experience of the 1872 Cup but Henry’s first 11 matches in this contest were all in a Warriors’ jersey…

Once A Warrior / Erstwhile Edinburghers:

There are 12 men in the clubs’ squads who have played for both teams:

Edinburgh – John Barclay, Mark Bennett, Cammy Fenton, Callum Hunter-Hill, Sean Kennedy, Fraser McKenzie, Henry Pyrgos
Glasgow – Alex Allan, Kevin Bryce, Lee Jones, George Turner, Lewis Wynne.

For various reasons only Henry Pyrgos, Callum Hunter-Hill and Kevin Bryce will be involved this weekend.

Matchday Milestones:

Following in the footsteps of fellow Fifer Chris Fusaro just a few weeks ago, Peter Horne will make his 150th appearance for Glasgow, becoming the 10th man to do so. Ryan Wilson (147) and Ruaridh Jackson (145) could well join that list over the next couple of months.

On the other side of the ball Ben Toolis will play his 100th game for Edinburgh – the club’s 32nd centurion (by way of comparison Niko Matwalu recently became the 44th Warrior Centurion).

Warriors to Watch:

The 9th set of siblings to play for the Warriors, Peter and George Horne, are well on their way to rewriting the record books for the club. Big brother Pete debuted nearly a decade ago during the 2009/10 season and has been a central figure in the Glasgow backline ever since. Wee George has only been around for a little over 2 years in the first team – but has already made a sizeable impact.

Against Lyon a few weeks back they overtook the Lamonts (Sean and Rory) as the 2nd most capped set of brothers for the Warriors. Currently on 179 (with admittedly Pete doing most of the heavy lifting in this stat, contributing 149 appearances so far) they’re now chasing down the all-time record of 264 matches held by the Bullochs (Gordon – 148; Alan – 116).

In terms of tries scored the Hornes are currently on 35 (Peter – 20; George – 15). That’s equal 3rd for brothers at Glasgow alongside the Bullochs (Gordon – 10; Alan – 25). With only 1 more required to equal the Evans though (Thom – 27; Max – 9) the Hornes will soon be hot on the heels of the top scoring siblings – the Lamonts – who picked up 51 tries for the club (Sean – 31; Rory – 20).

Glasgow away to Edinburgh during the PRO12/14 era:

• 3 wins
• 1 draw
• 3 losses
• 1 losing bonus point
• 15 points out of a possible 35 (43%)

Previous match-up:

1872 Cup stats:

Record appearances in 1872 Cup matches (including Saturday)

Edinburgh

• 18 – Ross Ford
• 12 – Grant Gilchrist
• 11 – Ben Toolis

Glasgow

• 15 – Dougie Hall, Robert Harley
• 14 – Al Kellock, Moray Low, Chris Fusaro
• 13 – Ruaridh Jackson

Top points scorer

Edinburgh – Phil Godman (63)

Glasgow – Dan Parks (99)

Top try scorer

Edinburgh – Tim Visser (7)

Glasgow – DTH van der Merwe (6)

Miscellany

• Edinburgh have won 6 out of the last 8 meetings between these two sides at all venues after no wins in the previous 7.
• Including Saturday’s lineups Glasgow have used 103 players in 1872 Cup fixtures. Edinburgh have used 127.
• This is the first 1872 Cup match since 26th December 2013 not to feature Sam Hidalgo-Clyne.
• Ben Toolis has played the last eleven 1872 Cup games in a row.
• Tommy Seymour has been on the losing side in the last four 1872 Cup games he has played.
• With 23 matches in this series since the 1872 Cup was first contested in 2007/08 the aggregate score stands at:

Edinburgh   443  –  442   Glasgow

Officials:

Referee: Mike Adamson (SRU, 27th competition game)
AR1: Lloyd Linton (SRU)
AR2: Keith Allen (SRU)
TMO: Andrew McMenemy (SRU)

Mr. Adamson’s regular season record for 2017/18 in the PRO14:

Matches – 13 (all refs – 147)
Average penalty count – 21.2 per game (all refs – 19.0)
Home penalty percentage – 53% (all refs – 53%)
Average card count – 1.2 per game (all refs – 0.9)
Penalties per card – 13 (all refs – 22)

More penalties awarded than any other ref in the PRO14 last season (275 – next highest was 258).

More free kicks awarded than any other ref in the PRO14 last season (28 – next highest was 18).

More yellow cards than any other ref in the PRO14 last season (21 – next highest was 14).

Only David Wilkinson (12.8) had a lower penalties per card ratio than Mr. Adamson (13.1).

The key takeaway? Scotland’s leading ref is not in the game management phase of his career. If teams get it ‘wrong’ he will whistle them off the park until they conform to what he’s looking for.

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* Highlights of all matches in Round 11:

• Premier Sports 1 – Monday 24th December at 10.00am
• FreeSports – Tuesday 25th December at 1.30pm