Need to Know: Montpellier v Glasgow Warriors, Challenge Cup match preview 2020/21

KO 8.00pm
GGL Stadium
Friday 2nd April 2021
Live on BT Sport ESPN

• Glasgow have a decent record away to Montpellier with 2 wins and a draw in European competition. They did lose the most recent meeting between these two sides on French soil however, with Montpellier running out 36-26 winners in December 2017.
• Just 13 of the 46 players return from that game in 2017:
  Montpellier – Jan Serfontein, Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg, Bismarck du Plessis and Mohamed Haouas.
  Glasgow – Nick Grigg, Lee Jones, Ali Price, Fraser Brown, Zander Fagerson, Ryan Wilson, George Horne and Niko Matawalu.
• Giant human being, Oli Kebble, is the Warrior to Watch.

Teams

Head to Head:

Back 3 – ADV Montpellier
Centres – ADV Montpellier
Half Backs – ADV Glasgow
Front Row – ADV Glasgow
Second Row – ADV Glasgow
Back Row – ADV Montpellier
Subs – EVEN

Glasgow Greetings:

Warriors’ fans have had to waits since the 16th of April to see George Turner, Zander Fagerson and Ali Price in action for the club. Alongside the other Scotland players, there’s a real hope they can bring some of the positivity from the Six Nations’ campaign and that they can hit the ground running as they return to Glasgow duty.

Matchday Milestones:

Adam Hastings made his debut in the opening fixture of the Dave Rennie era (a very soggy night away to Connacht). He’ll be making his 50th Warriors’ appearance when he runs out at 10 against Montpellier. The former Bath man is just 8 points short of 400 for the club and he will need to be an influential figure if the Warriors are to progress to the quarter finals.

Warrior to Watch:

Glasgow will have both their first choice props starting together on Friday night – just the third time that has happened this season. Loosehead, Oli Kebble has become a central figure in the Warriors’ pack since joining the club at the start of the 2017/18 season.

The powerful prop had the best rate of defenders beaten of any Glasgow forward last season (one every 6.6 carries). Against a stuffy French side, used to the arm wrestle up front that’s prevalent in the Top 14, that ability to break tackles at close quarters will be vital if the Warriors are to deliver front foot ball to the backs.

Glasgow v Montpellier – previous results

• Montpellier 11 – 30 Glasgow (Challenge Cup 2003/04 1st leg)
• Glasgow 38 – 13 Montpellier (Challenge Cup 2003/04 2nd leg)
• Glasgow 20 – 15 Montpellier (Heineken Cup 2011/12)
• Montpellier 13 – 13 Glasgow (Heineken Cup 2011/12)
• Montpellier 13 – 15 Glasgow (Heineken Cup 2014/15)
• Glasgow 21 – 10 Montpellier (Heineken Cup 2014/15)
• Glasgow 22 – 29 Montpellier (Heineken Cup 2017/18)
• Montpellier 36 – 26 Glasgow (Heineken Cup 2017/18)

Previous match-up:

Officials:

Referee: Karl Dickson (England)
AR1: Maxime Chalon (France)
AR2: Vincent Blasco Basque (France)
TMO: Ian Tempest (England)

Mr Dickson will take charge of his first ever Warriors’ fixture – or will he? He is down in the EPCR record books as the referee for Glasgow’s 0-28 defeat to Lyon in Round 2 of this season’s Champions Cup. The minor wrinkle being of course that the game was never played and was awarded (somewhat controversially) as a walkover to the French side.

So, a first proper game for the former Harlequins scrum half (it’s nearly always scrum halves isn’t it?) His average penalty count of 21.0 per game and yellow card count of 1.0 per game are fairly typical. Remarkably he does appear to have only issued one red card in his top level career so far. Of course, in his role as TMO, he was the man who tried to talk Matthew Carley down from sending off Zander Fagerson in the Scotland v Wales game a few weeks back. The Warriors would be wise to mind their discipline though and not assume the ref will always be so lenient…

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Additional referee stats from the excellent resources at cardiffrfcfans.com