When & Where:
Musgrave Park, Cork – Tickets Here
19:00 Sky Sports
Teams:
Glasgow: 15. Ruaridh Jackson; 14. Lee Jones, 13. Sam Johnson, 12. Brandon Thomson, 11. Ratu Tagive; 10. Adam Hastings, 9. George Horne;
1. Oli Kebble, 2. James Malcolm, 3. Siua Halanukonuka, 4. Kiran McDonald, 5. Scott Cummings, 6. Rob Harley CAPTAIN, 7. Matt Smith, 8. Matt Fagerson
Replacements: 16. Grant Stewart, 17. Alex Allan, 18. Zander Fagerson, 19. Lewis Wynne, 20. Chris Fusaro, 21. Henry Pyrgos, 22. Richie Vernon, 23. Niko Matawalu
Munster: 15. Simon Zebo; 14. Andrew Conway, 13. Sam Arnold, 12: Dan Goggin, 11: Alex Wootton; 10. Tyler Bleyendaal, 9: James Hart;
1. James Cronin, 2. Niall Scannell, 3. Stephen Archer, 4. Jean Kleyn, 5. Billy Holland CAPTAIN, 6. Dave O’Callaghan, 7. Chris Cloete, 8. Robin Copeland
Replacements: 16. Rhys Marshall, 17. Dave Kilcoyne, 18. Brian Scott, 19. Gerbrandt Grobler, 20. Jack O’Donoghue, 21. Duncan Williams, 22. Ian Keatley, 23. Calvin Nash
Set-Piece Breakdown
Scrum: Munster Advantage
Lineout: Munster Advantage
Maul: Munster Advantage
When I saw Glasgow’s teamsheet named this morning, there were two names I was looking for – Tim Swinson and Scott Cummings. Swinson is a key mental driver in Glasgow’s pack and they’ll miss his aggression, his platform carrying and the safe lineout option he gives in the lineout.
Scott Cummings is a key defensive lineout operator for Glasgow and he’ll looking to challenge in the air on most throws between the 22s from the middle to the front. He’ll likely take over as primary jumping outlet on their throw in Swinson’s absence.
Munster should have an advantage in all the set-piece exchanges. Our scrum has been going quite well this season, especially with the front five combo we’ve selected here.
I haven’t been overly impressed with Glasgow’s maul this season and their likely reliance on Cummings and Harley as outlets gives us a bit of a guide as to how they’ll approach this game from a lineout structure POV. I think they’ll use McDonald as front jumper, Cummings as a middle jumper and Harley as a middle and tail option. McDonald is a big lad at #4 and is one to watch. He’s a little slow in the air but he’s a dynamic player around the pitch and I’d expect him to be replace Swinson’s platform carrying.
Watching Glasgow
The vast majority of Glasgow’s kicking action will come from Hastings and Jackson – their 10 and 15. Glasgow tend not to contest box kicks from the base of the ruck, but that isn’t to say that they aren’t a kicking team; they just don’t kick from 9 very often when I’ve watched them.
Adam Hastings (yeah, he’s Gavin’s son) might not be all that well known over this side of the water just yet but he’s looking like the heir apparent to Finn Russell in the Glasgow #10 shirt. He’s a guy that looks to have the potential to not only fill the gap that Russell will leave at the end of the season but even improve on Russell’s overall contribution to the Glasgow side. Not only is Hastings showing himself to be a talented attacking 10, he’s also displayed some excellent kicking ability and a growing sense of game management.
Glasgow’s requirements in this game are the same as they always are; avoid getting beaten up in phase play/set-piece and use width, pace & quick ball to stretch teams in the middle to wide channels.
They are capable of kicking the ball all through their backline and will probably look to frustrate Munster early by squeezing our lineout exit, pressurising Bleyendaal on his return from injury and probing our back three alignment.
I’d expect to see a fair bit of action like this early on, especially if Munster reject their initial phase play attempts.
Glasgow are fairly decisive in their kick away option taking. If they aren’t gaining ground or finding the line pressure is a little much, they’ll punish you on plays like the above – especially if you play 13-up-2-back.
Overall, Glasgow will probably look to hang onto the ball as much as possible. To understand how Glasgow like to attack, you have to look at how they structure their phase play based on their playing resources. Glasgow are pretty well aware that they don’t have dominant ball carriers that they can use to reliably soak in and punish multiple defenders. Their loose play system is based on setting up a combination of centre field position mixed with quick ball to strike off of.
Here’s an example of how they like to “crab” into position;
None of these carries are dynamic, or provide quick ball, but they are just “jabs” to wait for an opening in spacing while the outside players manipulate the wider defenders.
The attacking players in the box will “crab” across the pitch in small steps with the ruck cleaners in situ before the ruck, all the while looking for a dominant ruck strike that will produce the spacing or the quick ball alignment that they want. Look at what happens when they get their quick ball;
Hastings makes a good bail out kick angled to the wings that challenges the backfield alignment and forces a pressured exit.
Look at this off a turnover.
They set-up off a platform carry – it made no ground, but it gave them the quick ball and spacing around the ruck that gave Horne a chance to attack. We’ll see Glasgow with this separation during the game as they look for space, bad reads and alignments.
Glasgow don’t need to have dominant strikes over the gain line when they retain the ball on most phases – even on turnover ball.
This GIF came off a kick transition but Glasgow ran the same slow, well resourced forward set-up carries to the centre of the field before striking when the space opened up in front of Hastings.
How do Munster stop this? I think matching their narrow alignment to beat up their forward carriers man for man in contact, having the likes of Cloete, Cronin and Copeland float between their “crab” rucks to attack and slow their ball, and then backing our scramble to cover their wide forays. I’d stick three guys in the backfield to reduce Hastings and Jackson’s bail out options with the boot and force Glasgow to run into our big tacklers again and again.
I think we can give their scrum a bit of a rinsing on our current form. Without Gibbins, they’re vulnerable to getting chain-carried – the high intensity, high paced fringe carrying that we know we can bring to the table.
I think their midfield looks a little vulnerable, especially off set-piece, and I’d expect Bleyendaal and Zebo to mix up the roles at first receiver quite a bit.
Controlling Glasgow defensively, hurting them in contact and pinning them into their half of the field is vital. Attacking them in the air should give us a good supply of possession behind their lines, and having Conway back will be vital in this regard. Without Hogg they are reduced slightly on their ability to counter-attack but kicking loosely to them is beyond ill-advised.
How good is Hart’s kicking game? We’re about to find out.
We have the potential to grind Glasgow out here. With the right mentality, we can take out a lot of frustrations on these lads through the forward exchanges to the point where a home bonus point win wouldn’t surprise me. If we make the scrum, lineout and maul important in this game then I think we’ll win and Bleyendaal’s ability to make sure all three of these happen in the right areas will be key.
At the same time, Glasgow are relentlessly dangerous and they’ll have no fear whatsoever of coming to Cork. That fear will have to be reintroduced this Friday. We have to remind them that this is Musgrave Park and this is Munster at home. This is the ground where the Wallabies got ran out of Cork with more black eyes than a panda enclosure.
When that whistle blows, Glasgow will have to find out the hard way that they aren’t the only lads that can turn on the nasty streak at home. This is Munster. We invented that shit. Perfected it. It’s time for some old school dungeon pumping with the cell door locked tight. It’s time to turn up the heat.
