The Ospreys team to play Aironi on Saturday 25th September 2010 at Liberty Stadium, kick off at 6.30pm, will be as follows:-
15 Lee Byrne
14 Richard Fussell
13 Tommy Bowe
12 Andrew Bishop
11 Shane Williams
10 Dan Biggar
9 Jamie Nutbrown
1 Paul James
2 Richard Hibbard
3 Adam Jones
4 Ian Gough
5 Alun Wyn Jones (Capt)
6 Jerry Collins
7 Ben Lewis
8 Jonathan Thomas
Replacements
16 Huw Bennett
17 Ryan Bevington
18 Craig Mitchell
19 Ryan Jones
20 Justin Tipuric
21 Mike Phillips
22 Gareth Owen
23 Nikki Walker
The following players were not considered because of injury:
Tom Smith – Shoulder
Rory Pitman – Knee
James Hook – Shoulder
Barry Davies – Groin
Scott Baldwin – Foot
Jonathan Spratt – ACL
Ian Evans – Foot/ankle
Forwards Coach, Jonathan Humphreys, commented:
“We’re looking forward to getting back out there after a disappointing performance in Munster last Saturday. We’re glad that we’ve got a chance to put the things right that we have to. We know where we are at the moment, and we know it’s not quite where we want to be, but we are building week by week, reintegrating international players and our injury list is thankfully looking a lot shorter than it was.
“We’re pretty experienced at how we do this, we look at the bigger picture of a full season and not just the first couple of weeks of the season. If you look at last year, we were a bit inconsistent at the start, lost our first two home games, but we were able to time it right in terms of bringing guys back and the team kicked on well at the right time. It’s a necessary problem for us with the commitments we have internationally and everything, and it’s a problem we like having. But it’s important that we all realise that we are building for the whole season.
“It’s new opposition for us, an unfamiliar team, but three games in we’ve been able to have a good look at them. They’ve probably taken a bit longer to settle into the Magners League than Treviso, which is understandable as they are a new entity just like we were a few years back, but they’ve shown enough to make people realise what threats they have.
“We’ll be entirely focused on this one, we’ve prepared well and we’re looking forward to it. They’ve got some good players in the squad and any talk of not taking them lightly would be disrespectful to Aironi, we don’t take any opposition lightly and prepare for every game in exactly the same manner. If we didn’t do that, we’d be lining ourselves up for a fall, whoever the opposition.”
Forthcoming Fixtures
Sat 2 Oct– Scarlets V Ospreys – Parc Y Scarlets – 8.10pm – Magners League
Sat 9 Oct – Toulon V Ospreys – Stade Mayol – 2.30pm – Heineken Cup
Fri 15 Oct – Ospreys V London Irish – Liberty Stadium - 8.00pm – Heineken Cup