Glasgow Warriors welcome back Jack Dempsey, Matt Fagerson, Stafford McDowall and captain Kyle Steyn from Scotland duty as they host Cardiff at Scotstoun on Friday.
The Warriors have been in good form during the 'fallow' Six Nations weekends, with a bonus point win over Dragons backed up by a hard-fought win over Benetton in Italy.
Here, stats expert Kevin Millar picks through the numbers ahead of a landmark meeting between the two clubs.
- This will be the 50th meeting between these two sides during the professional era.
- In the first 25 fixtures, Glasgow only won on 9 occasions and lost 16 times. Since that point, they have won 20 out of 24 versus Cardiff.
- The visitors have only played once at Scotstoun in the last four years and five months.
- There are 20 changes to the starting line-ups from that most recent meeting, in September 2022, with six returnees in the home lineup and four for the away side.
- Five of Cardiff’s seven remaining fixtures in this season’s URC are away from home. Glasgow have a three home / four away split.
- Skipper, Kyle Steyn, is the Warrior to Watch.
Glasgow Greetings:
Duncan Munn is in line to be Warrior number 360 when he is launched from the bench. With Tom Jordan covering stand off, Munn is likely the go to replacement for at least three players so has a strong chance of making his debut.
Another Duncan – Weir in this case – will make his first start at Scotstoun since March 2022. The fly half is closing in on becoming just the third man to score 900 points for Glasgow (after Dan Parks and Tommy Hayes) with 25 points to go to hit this landmark.
This will be just the third Warriors’ game of the season so far for Jack Dempsey who has played 11 times for Scotland since the end of the 2022/23 campaign. The big number 8 will be itching to be back out there – an all-action performance is guaranteed.
Matchday Milestones:
In form full back, Josh McKay, wears the number 15 shirt for a 12th consecutive match. He’s the first player to manage a streak of this length since Bernardo Stortoni was at full back for 36 games in a row between April 2009 and October 2010.
This is just the third time in the last three seasons that Jamie Dobie has started back to back matches at scrum half.
Tom Jordan is the only player to feature in every single one of Glasgow’s fixtures so far this season. Stafford McDowall has missed one game and his 14 starts are the equal most in the squad alongside Josh McKay.
Warrior to Watch:
Kyle Steyn has been an inspired choice to take the role of Glasgow’s captain. Friday evening’s game will be his 20th as skipper and he currently has a 68.4% win percentage.
There has been no drop off in the level of his normal contributions to games either. He has quietly gone about his business since arriving at the club in 2018, accumulating 20 tries – only three players in the current squad have more (George Horne – 42; Johnny Matthews – 35; Fraser Brown – 25).
With Huwipulotu missing for the foreseeable future, Steyn’s flexibility – in particular being able to play at outside centre (arguably his best position) – could be important for the Warriors as the run-in to the end of the season gathers momentum.
Whatever happens, the Scotland international will lead from the front and set the high standards Glasgow need if they want to keep progressing and improving.
Current form:
Glasgow at home to Cardiff in the PRO12/PRO14/URC era:
- 10 wins
- 7 Try BPs
- 47 points out of a possible 50 (94%)
- The Warriors have also won one and lost one at home against Cardiff in the Champions Cup during this period.
Previous league match-up v Cardiff at Scotstoun:
Officials:
Referee: Frank Murphy (IRFU, 82nd league game)
AR1: Mike Adamson (SRU)
AR2: Sam O'Neil (SRU)
TMO: Colin Stanley (IRFU)
Frank Murphy’s record for 2022/23:
- Matches – 17
- Average penalty count – 22.0 per game
- Home side penalties conceded percentage – 52.4%
- Average card count – 1.4 per game
- Penalties per card – 16.3
It has been a while since Irish official Murphy was last sighted taking charge of a Glasgow fixture – just over a year in fact, while it’s been twice as long as that since his last outing at Scotstoun.
By contrast, this will be the fourth time this season that the Irish whistler will have refereed one of Cardiff’s games. The Welsh side will have no excuse for not being prepared for the experienced official’s disciplinary peccadilloes.
It’s worth noting that Murphy’s penalty (18.0 per game) and card counts (0.6) during 2023/24 are well down on last season. Have teams been better behaved during the current campaign or has the former scrum-half become more tolerant?
It might be best not to test the latter theory too much on Friday night at Scotstoun. The home side need to follow up two strong performances during the Six Nations’ window and cannot afford any slip-ups.
Additional ref stats from: https://www.cardiffrfcfans.com/analysis/referee_heads.php?countryID=3
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