Following the Covid disruptions over the festive period the Army Rugby Union will be represented in both the Premiership and United Rugby Championship this weekend.
First up is Cpl Lewis Bean (Rifles), who returns to the Glasgow Warriors’ match day 23 for the first time since the bonus point Champions Cup defeat away to La Rochelle in early December.
Cpl Bean and his team mates host Ospreys at Scotstoun for their first action since before Christmas, their back-to-back clashes with Edinburgh having fallen foul of the pandemic.
The two teams go into Saturday’s contest with precious little between them. Ospreys are fourth in the table, just one place and one league point above Glasgow, with the Warriors the sixth-best attack and the Welsh region the seventh-best.
Meanwhile Ospreys have the 10th-best defence and Glasgow the 11th-best, and both teams have three wins and two defeats from their last five matches.
With league points at a premium before the next two rounds of Champions Cup and then the Six Nations there is plenty to play for, and you can watch all the action on Premier Sports 1, KO 1715hrs.
Twenty-two hours later LCpl Semesa Rokoduguni (Scots DG) will once again line up on the wing for Bath as the west country outfit look to break their Premiership losing snap at home to Worcester Warriors.
Bath, too, had an unscheduled week off over the New Year, their trip to London Irish cancelled after Covid-19 cases sprang up in the Bath camp. They welcome Worcester to The Rec on the back of a losing streak which extends back to last season’s Round 22, but come up against a Warriors outfit who has won only once on the road themselves since November 2019.
Not only that, but Worcester have failed to win on any of their previous 17 visits to The Rec.
LCpl Rokoduguni has been a familiar face in the Bath starting line-up this season, playing in nine of the team’s 10 matches, and proving potent with ball in hand with a 7.44m average ball carry.
Sunday’s match kicks off at 1500hrs.
Words © New Dogs,Old Tricks. Header and featured image © Craig Watson
