Glasgow's Williamson fronts up as Bulls promise charge

URC: Glasgow Warriors v Bulls

Venue: Scotsoun Stadium, Glasgow Date: Friday, 25 April Time: 19:35 BST

Coverage: Follow live text coverage on the BBC Sport website & app

Even if he was not the size of a large tower block, when big Max Williamson refers to Friday night's encounter between Glasgow Warriors and the Bulls as a "massive battle", you would not be minded to disagree.

Williamson, inching his way back to health in Glasgow's second row after missing four months of the season through injury, is spot on here, A repeat of last year's final and a clash of second versus third in this year's table - it doesn't get a whole lot bigger.

The stakes and the rhetoric are high. Bulls head coach Jake White said this week that everybody involved with his team wrote the date of this game on their wall when the fixtures were published.

It was a reference to the angst Glasgow dumped on them in Pretoria last summer when the Bulls raced into a 13-0 lead in the United Rugby Championship Grand Final only for the underdogs to bite back and win the thing against the odds.

"I can promise you, from the day we started pre-season, 25 April was always going to be the game that we were going to go hard for," said White of Friday night.

To be fair to Glasgow, they have thrown some petrol on the fire themselves. Earlier in the week, Nigel Carolan, a key coach in Franco Smith's operation, spoke about the arrival of the Bulls and compared Scotstoun to a slaughterhouse.

For the South Africans, who have lost two of the past three URC finals, that will be grist to the mill. Quite honestly, Eddie Hearn at his most bombastic could not have done a better job at promoting this game.

Speaking on the BBC's Scotland Rugby Podcast, Williamson weighed up the importance of Friday. With only three games left in the league phase and only four points between Glasgow in second and the Bulls in third, the margins are tight.

Glasgow are already guaranteed a home quarter-final. Beating the Bulls would go an awfully long way towards securing a home semi-final as well, if they get there. None of this is lost on Williamson, 22.

These are the dicey times for the Warriors. Of their glorious side that won the title last season, upwards of eight won't be playing in this game, for various reasons, mostly injury.

So having Friday starter Williamson back on the pitch this past few weeks, albeit from the bench, is exactly what Smith needed. It's precisely what Williamson wanted, too. He was in serious form in the autumn and played thunderously for Scotland against South Africa at Murrayfield, only to succumb to injury. The Six Nations came and went without him.

"I injured myself in November, and then re-injured myself in January, which was obviously tough, but it was also a good opportunity," he says.

"I played a lot of rugby in the last 12 months, so it was a good opportunity to get a bit of physical development. That's kind of the way I tried to spin it. The one advantage of being injured is that I feel really fresh now."

What about these angry Bulls, then. "Yeah, huge," comments Williamson. "You know, looking at the table, it's massive. With what happened last year, we know they're going to be coming. They've said it - this is the game for them. So we're up for that too.

"We know it's going to be a battle on Friday night. That's what it's going to be. We know they're coming here for a physical contest. We want to take the rugby to them and match them in that physical battle.

"It will definitely be a feisty game. They always bring their physicality and we're not going to stand back and let them do it."

Statistically, Glasgow have more points for and fewer points against, more tries for and fewer tries against, more clean breaks, more turnovers won, more bonus points.

All the metrics tell you they are favourites to win, but you cannot put a number on aggression and rage for victory. There is no data that records the type of raw desire that White has spoken about.

Glasgow will not be lacking in that department either. Andrew Brace is refereeing. Given the fighting talk from both of these heavyweights, he might be as well bring a bell as a whistle to the Scotstoun scrap.