Gloucester Rugby take on Sale Sharks this afternoon at the AJ Bell Stadium. Here are all of the key player, team and form statistics ahead of the Gallagher Premiership clash.

Form

● Gloucester Rugby won their first Premiership encounter with Sale Sharks this season and will try to complete the double over them for the first time since the 2016/17 campaign; the last six matchups between these two teams have ended with margins of six points or fewer.

● Sale Sharks have won six of their eight home matches so far in this season’s Premiership, with four of those wins coming by margins of fewer than 10 points, and the other two both coming by margins of 24 points.

● Sale Sharks are winless in their last two Premiership games (D1 L1); the only time they’ve gone three matches without a win this season was a run between September and October 2021, which culminated in a 33-32 defeat to today’s opposition, Gloucester Rugby.

● Gloucester Rugby have lost their last two Premiership away matches after going undefeated in their previous six (W5 D1); however, they have not lost three consecutive away matches since a run between August 2020 and February 2021, where they lost eight on the bounce.

Statistics

● Sale Sharks and Gloucester Rugby conceded just seven penalties each in last week’s round of fixtures, fewer than any other side; however, Sale Sharks rank fourth for penalties conceded this season (215).

● Gloucester Rugby have completed more tackles than any other side in this season’s Premiership (2,641); they are also one of the five teams, alongside Sale Sharks, to have a tackle success rate of at least 80% this term.

● Despite only featuring off the bench, no player attempted more kicks from open-play in last weekend’s round of fixtures than Sale Sharks scrum-half Faf de Klerk (15).

Player Stats

● No player has completed more dominant tackles this season than Sale Sharks’ Jono Ross (16), who has completed at least one dominant tackle in 13 of the 17 games he has played this season.

● Only Tyrone Green (232) has completed more carries in this season’s Premiership than Gloucester Rugby’s Ruan Ackermann (202); in fact, he has completed more than double the number of carries as Gloucester Rugby’s next most frequent carrier, Adam Hastings (88).

● Gloucester Rugby’s Lewis Ludlow has hit more defensive rucks than any other player in this season’s Premiership (123), with his teammate Ruan Ackermann also being one of the seven players to garner more than 100 defensive ruck arrivals this term (102).

Sale preview – All the stats ahead of Gloucester Rugby’s AJ Bell trip

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