Need to Know: Zebre Parma v Glasgow Warriors, United Rugby Championship match preview 2022/23

KO 1.00 (local time – 2.00) at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi
Saturday 3rd December 2022
Live on Premier Sports 1

• The side that can’t win at home (except against Dragons) versus the side that can’t win away. What are the odds on a draw?!?
• Glasgow have lost their last 9 away matches in all competitions. The club’s worst such streak in the professional era is 10 consecutive away losses (between September 2002 to September 2003 and also October 2004 to March 2005).
• Zebre have yet to win at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi this season but they have bagged 15 tries and an average of 26 points per game in their 4 fixtures so far in 2022-23. They also picked up 2 bonus points in both their game against Leinster and versus the Sharks.
• This is the heaviest Glasgow starting pack selected this season, weighing in at a massive 949kg.
• Ryan Wilson has more previous appearances for Glasgow (217) than the entire Zebre pack combined do for their club.
• The ever present Sintu Manjezi is this week’s Warrior to Watch.

Teams

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

Head to Head:

Back 3 – ADV Glasgow

Centres – EVEN

Half Backs – ADV Glasgow

Front Row – ADV Glasgow

Second Row – EVEN

Back Row – ADV Glasgow

Subs – EVEN

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.

This is the second attempt at this stat after Matt’s late withdrawal prevented the brothers Fagerson from playing their 50th game together when Glasgow took on the Sharks.

Warrior to Watch:

After joining up from the Bulls this season, Sintu Manjezi has settled in very well at Glasgow – he is the only forward to be selected for all 8 of the club’s fixtures so far in 2022/23. Those previous 7 appearances have given some indications to Warriors’ fans of what kind of player their new signing is. His workrate is fairly balanced, although probably tending more towards big defensive shifts.

In attack, he’s a hard yards carrier around the fringes of the ruck. On the other side of things he is an aggressive tackler – but has still managed to maintain a 100% success rate. Whether playing at lock or back row he is a dual threat to pinch the ball, ranking 15th in the URC for turnovers and 7th for lineout steals. If there is one work on for the only uncapped player in Glasgow’s starting pack, it would be to cut down on the penalties. Only 11 others in the URC have conceded more than the 8 that Sintu has copped.

Glasgow away to Zebre in the URC/PRO14/12:

• 10 wins
• 8 try BPs
• 48 points out of a possible 50 (96%)

Highlights from most recent meeting with Zebre in Italy:

Officials:

Referee: Tual Trainini (FFR, 2nd league game)
AR1: Franco Rosella (FIR)
AR2: Gabriel Chirnoaga (FIR)
TMO: Eric Briquet-Campin (FFR)

M. Trainini’s record for 2021/22:

Matches – 15
Average penalty count – 22.9 per game
Home side penalties conceded percentage – 50.9%
Average card count – 1.5 per game
Penalties per card – 15.0

This will be M. Trainini’s second excursion in the United Rugby Championship – and also his second encounter with Glasgow. That previous occasion came last season when the French official took charge of the Warriors’ Challenge Cup Round of 16 match away to Newcastle.

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Additional ref stats from: https://www.cardiffrfcfans.com/analysis/referee_heads.php?countryID=5