Van der Merwe happy to see tries shared around at Glasgow

Senior Sports Writer

Friday 1 March 2013

There was a spell this season when DTH van der Merwe looked as if he would dominate Glasgow Warriors' try-scoring just as Tim Visser, the man recruited by Edinburgh at the same time as he arrived in Scotland has been doing at the other end of the M8.

DTH van der Merwe says having a number of players capable of scoring helps Warriors to play a free-flowing game. Picture: SNS

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Kevin Ferrie

Visser's stunning strike-rate has meant he has dominated the RaboDirect Pro12 scoring charts for the past four seasons to match Tommy Bowe at the top of the competition's all-time standings. The Dutch-born winger has rattled in 11 this term, plus five more in his first eight Test appearances since qualifying to represent Scotland.

By contrast, Van der Merwe has crossed the opposition line eight times for Warriors and while he is second only to Visser in terms of Pro12 tries scored, he has managed only one this year, against Treviso on January 4. Yet the South African-born Canadian internationalist is both respectful of his Edinburgh counterpart and quite happy with his own lot in every sense."Everybody knows what a threat Tim is for Edinburgh. Defences put two guys on him every time now but he's still scoring tries and doing really well," Van der Merwe said. "But if we can spread [tries] around the park with some other guys scoring then it is a bonus for the whole team."From a Glasgow point of view, if you look at the top try-scorers in the Pro12 this season, Tommy Seymour, with seven, and I are both up there in the top five and Tim Swinson is not far behind with five. It's great to have guys popping up everywhere and it shows someone else might be picking up the slack, so we don't need as many guys to do one job and we can play more of a free-flowing game."Which is not to say Van der Merwe does not have a striker's eye for statistics, and he is patiently awaiting the chance to remove his good friend Thom Evans from Glasgow's record books. "I'm one try off equalling the Glasgow record," Van der Merwe said, before quickly double-checking with the club's press officer, who confirmed his career tally is 26 to Evans' 27."Thom is good friend and it will be great to send him a text [on] the night [that] I beat him," Van der Merwe said."He texted me a few weeks ago. He had obviously seen I was getting close, so he is keeping tabs on it and that's great, a little bragging rights between each other."That kind of healthy rivalry is also reflected in Van der Merwe's observation that lock forward Swinson has only accumulated so many tries as he has because he has been played out of position on the wing.Accusations of poaching apart, though, the reality is that in the past few weeks 11 different players have been involved in scoring Glasgow's 17 tries.Additionally, their clubmates Stuart Hogg, Sean Maitland and Sean Lamont have all bagged tries for Scotland at the RBS 6 Nations and Jonny Gray made it on to the scoresheet while leading the under-20s to back-to-back wins over Italy and Ireland.That sort of firepower has been a significant factor in putting Warriors within range of a first home Pro12 semi-final and Van der Merwe – who hopes he will have to miss an international appearance for Canada because it falls on the same weekend as the Pro12 grand final – admitted they are daring to dream about that prospect. "We are starting to look at a top-two spot," he said. "Having a home semi-final would be great, but you can't count your chickens. We have six more games and need to win all of them to make sure we get that home semi-final. We definitely won't be taking our foot off the accelerator."Having the big stands up [at Scotstoun] like they were for the IRB sevens last year would be great. There would be a tremendous atmosphere."Van der Merwe has been in Scotland long enough to know what a top-two finish for one of its pro teams would mean to a nation starved of success in the Six Nations era."In the four years I have been here we have made the semi-finals twice the community in Glasgow are really getting behind us," he added. "If we get a home semi-final it would really boost us, and not just for this year. It would be great for Glasgow rugby for years to come."Tonight's target against a Cardiff team that has been dangerous on the road this season but is still very much being rebuilt by head coach Phil Davies, has to be a fifth successive bonus-point win which would set a new Pro12 record.That is likely be necessary if Glasgow are to maintain a slight advantage over Leinster ahead of what looks like being a crunch meeting between the two teams immediately after the Six Nations window. That match will almost certainly decide where the semi-final is played, since Glasgow's own recent experience when scoring eight tries at Rodney Parade suggests the European champions are unlikely to fail to take a maximum haul from tonight's visit to the Dragons.

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Van der Merwe happy to see tries shared around at Glasgow

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