Ospreys team to play Lyon

The Ospreys team to play Lyon at the Liberty Stadium on Sunday 15th January 2017, KO 3.00pm, is as follows:

15 Dan Evans

14 Keelan Giles 

13 Kieron Fonotia

12 Ashley Beck

11 Hanno Dirksen

10 Dan Biggar

9 Tom Habberfield

 

1 Nicky Smith

2 Sam Parry

3 Maafu Fia

4 Rory Thornton

5 Alun Wyn Jones (Capt)

6 James King

7 Justin Tipuric

8 Dan Baker

 

REPLACEMENTS

16 Scott Baldwin

17 Paul James

18 Rhodri Jones

19 Adam Beard

20 Sam Underhill

21 Brendon Leonard

22 Josh Matavesi

23 Sam Davies

 

The following players were unavailable for selection due to injury:

 

Tyler Ardron - Thumb

Dmitri Arhip - Shoulder

Bradley Davies Knee

Tom Grabham Knee

Jeff Hassler Achilles

Ben John Groin

Dan Lydiate Knee

Eli Walker - Back

Owen Watkin Knee

Rhys Webb Ankle

 

Head Coach, Steve Tandy, commented:

Weve put ourselves in a strong position in the pool with our performances over the first four rounds but now its important that we finish the job off. Theres been a lot spoken and written this week about records, wins in a row, bonus points, whatever, but thats all just noise coming from outside of our environment.

The only thing we are focusing on is getting a good performance from the group, making sure everybody is over the detail that is required to go out there and play our game. If we do that, everything else will follow on from there. All that matters to us now over the next two weekends is making sure that we dont waste the hard work of the first four rounds, that we do what we need to get over the line for the last eight.

Lyon are not going to just allow us to have our own way. They are big and physical and with the benefit of a weekend off last time will be fresh. They are still in this competition with two rounds to go and will want to take it to the last day at home to Grenoble to give themselves a real chance of progressing, so we are going to have to be up for this from the first whistle.

What weve seen over the last month or so is that we can win in different ways, weve got the character to slug it out if needs be, or we can be more expansive if the game allows us to. That could be important this weekend. Hopefully well have the kind of support we enjoyed last weekend at the Connacht game to really help us kick on. If we can give them something to sing about at the end, well have repaid them.

 

Forthcoming Fixtures 

Sat 21 Jan 5.00pm Newcastle Falcons v Ospreys Kingston Park ERCC

Sat 28 Jan 3.00pm Ospreys v Bristol Bridgend Ford Brewery Field AW Cup

Sun 5 Feb 3.00pm Wasps v Ospreys Ricoh Arena AW Cup

Fri 10 Feb 8.00pm (Local) -  Zebre v Ospreys - Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi PRO12