Need to Know: Glasgow Warriors v Lions, United Rugby Championship match preview 2021/22

KO 3.05 at Scotstoun Stadium
Saturday 9th October 2021
Live on Premier Sports 1

• Murray McCallum’s appearance at tighthead means he will have made as many starts in the space of 8 days for Glasgow as he did in his last 2½ years at Edinburgh.
• The oldest player on the Lions’ bench is 24-year-old Carlu Sadie.
• By contrast, starting tighthead, Jannie du Plessis, will turn 39 in just over a month’s time. When du Plessis first started his pro career with the Free State Cheetahs, Glasgow’s Jamie Dobie was 2 years old!
• The Lions will be the 55th different side that Glasgow have played a competitive match against in their 25 year history.
• New boy Jack Dempsey is the Warrior to Watch.

Teams

Head to Head:

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

Glasgow Greetings:

Jamie Bhatti will make his 50th appearance for the club. Having left at the end of the 2018/19 season when he was on 47 appearances it didn’t look like Jamie would make his half century. He’s back with a bang though, scoring his first ever try at pro level, and will be looking stick around for a while yet. Maybe even bringing up a full century of appearances in a few years’ time?

It has been 1,990 days since Duncan Weir last played in a competitive match for Glasgow at Scotstoun – welcome back Duncy!

Warrior to Watch:

There has been a whirlwind start to his career at Glasgow for Jack Dempsey. The former Waratahs’ player has hit the ground running and made an instant impact in his first two appearances for the Warriors.

He touched the ball 54 times in those opening fixtures – more than any other Glasgow player bar scrum half George Horne. There has been plenty of class in that heavy involvement level. His smart offload to Rufus McLean from the opening kick-off in the Sharks’ game set the tone for the Warriors’ performance in the first 50 minutes of that fixture.

Leading the way among the Glasgow pack for passes, carries, metres made (where he’s carried the ball for 117m – no other Warriors’ forward has made more than 30m) and offloads, Demmo has proved he has a broad skillset. It’s his ability to consistently make ground, in the teeth of some oversized defences, that is really likely to endear him to the home crowd at Scotstoun.

Glasgow at home to South African opposition in the PRO14 era:

• 5 wins
• 5 try BPs
• 25 points out of a possible 25 (100%)

Officials:

Referee: Gianluca Gnecchi (FIR, 10th competition game)
AR1: David Sutherland (SRU)
AR2: Dunx McClement (SRU)
TMO: Matteo Liperini (FIR)

Sig Gnecchi’s regular season record for 2020/21:

Matches – 9
Average penalty count – 21.0 per game
Home side penalties conceded percentage – 50.3%
Average card count – 1.2 per game
Penalties per card – 17.2

Sig Gnecchi will take charge of a Warriors’ match for the first time. Glasgow haven’t always had the best of experiences with the new generation of Italian officials – although that’s normally been in games played in Italy. A good, disciplined performance should ensure the referee will not be a factor on Saturday.

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Additional ref stats from: https://www.cardiffrfcfans.com/analysis/referee_heads.php?countryID=6