Need to Know: Cell C Sharks v Glasgow Warriors, United Rugby Championship match preview 2022/23

KO 3.05 (4.05 local time) at Kings Park
Saturday 15th October 2022
Live on Premier Sports 1

• There are 16 full internationals (15 Scottish and 1 Argentinian) with a combined 461 Test caps in the Glasgow matchday squad.
• There are 12 full internationals (10 South African, 1 Australian and 1 Scottish) with a combined 316 Test caps in the Sharks’ matchday squad.
• Richie Gray will make his 11th consecutive start for the Warriors. That is the longest such streak in either of his spells with the club.
• Glasgow’s top try scorers in South Africa:
  • 3 – Callum Gibbins
  • 3 – DTH van der Merwe
  • 2 – Ali Price
  • 1 – 11 players (+ 1 penalty try)
• Scott Cummings has made himself a central part of Glasgow’s pack and their performances and he is this week’s Warrior to Watch.

Teams

(players in CAPITALS are full internationals; figures in brackets are previous appearances for Sharks / Glasgow Warriors)

Head to Head:

Back 3 – ADV Glasgow

Centres – ADV Glasgow

Half Backs – ADV Sharks

Front Row – ADV Glasgow

Second Row – ADV Sharks

Back Row – ADV Sharks

Subs – ADV Sharks

Glasgow Greetings:

Three players who were away with Scotland in South America over the summer are in line for their first Warriors’ appearances of the season. Full back, Ollie Smith will start. Prop, Murphy Walker, and stand off, Ross Thompson, are almost certain to be deployed from the bench.

Matchday Milestones:

On Saturday, Zander and Matt Fagerson will play in the same Glasgow team for the 50th time. The brothers also recently brought up a combined tally of over 200 appearances for the club – and they are still only 26 and 24 respectively! As things stand the only other siblings to play together for the Warriors on 50 or more occasions are the Bullochs, Gordon and Alan, who featured 83 times in the same side in the late 1990s and early 2000s

Warrior to Watch:

From his early appearances as an Academy player, Scott Cummings always had the assured look of someone who would make a top level pro. Fast forward 7 years and he is now Glasgow’s undisputed top performer at lock and someone who makes a significant difference to the quality of the Warrriors’ pack when he plays.

Second row is an area of the squad that is in transition and Scott’s ability to lead and set standards will be crucial to the development of a cadre of young locks who are about to break through.

This weekend brings a new challenge for Scott as he starts at 6 for the first time in a competitive match for Glasgow. Playing a lock at blindside seems to be in fashion right now and it is something the Warriors have flirted with in the past – although not necessarily with a huge amount of success! What Scott brings to the team won’t change an awful lot but there might need to be a slightly different division of labour in the pack, particularly around volume of rucks hit and tackles made.

Glasgow away to South African sides in the URC/PRO14/12:

• 2 wins
• 4 losses
• 3 try BPs
• 11 points out of a possible 30 (37%)

Officials:

Referee: Chris Busby (IRFU, 26th league game)
AR1: AJ Jacobs (SARU)
AR2: Cwengile Jadezweni (SARU)
TMO: Eoghan Cross (IRFU)

Mr Busby’s record for 2021/22:

Matches – 14
Average penalty count – 21.9 per game
Home side penalties conceded percentage – 47.2%
Average card count – 0.9 per game
Penalties per card – 23.6

Just 5 games into the season and this will be Mr Busby’s second time around in this campaign refereeing the Warriors after previously taking charge of their game at home to Cardiff. That fixture ended in a comfortable win for Glasgow with the penalty count (10 conceded to 11 for Cardiff) and card count (1 sin binning versus 2 for Cardiff) both in their favour. The Irish official is becoming a regular for Glasgow, with this being the 6th of his 26 URC fixtures to feature the Warriors.

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Additional ref stats from: https://www.cardiffrfcfans.com/analysis/referee_heads.php?countryID=3