Just the one change for the Ospreys as Tandy names team to face Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park on Sunday afternoon.
The Ospreys team to play Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park on Sunday 24th January 2016, KO 3.15pm, is as follows:
15 Dan Evans
14 Hanno Dirksen
13 Jonathan Spratt
12 Josh Matavesi
11 Eli Walker
10 Dan Biggar
9 Brendon Leonard
1 Paul James
2 Scott Baldwin
3 Dmitri Arhip
4 Lloyd Ashley
5 Alun Wyn Jones (Capt)
6 Sam Underhill
7 Justin Tipuric
8 James King
REPLACEMENTS
16 Sam Parry
17 Nicky Smith
18 Aaron Jarvis
19 Rory Thornton
20 Dan Baker
21 Tom Habberfield
22 Sam Davies
23 Owen Watkin
Dan Baker will make his 50th Ospreys appearance if he comes off the bench
Owen Watkin will make his European Cup debut if he comes off the bench
The following players were unavailable for selection due to injury:
Tyler Ardron – Knee
Ashley Beck – ACL
Gareth Delve – Ankle
Jeff Hassler - Thigh
Dafydd Howells – Hamstring
Dan Lydiate - Neck
Rhys Webb – Foot
Ospreys Head Coach, Steve Tandy, said:
“We’ve worked extremely hard to put ourselves into the position we are in going into the final round of fixtures knowing that we have our fate in our own hands. Win and we go through to the quarter-finals. We realise there aren’t many people who would have backed us to get to this point at the start of the season and we have to be pleased that we’ve done enough to get to this point. Nobody is getting carried away though. We are all well aware that possibly the toughest part of the job is still ahead of us on Sunday.
“Exeter are a great club who have established themselves at the top of the English game, with an outstanding record at home in particular. They haven’t lost at theirs in over a year, that’s the size of the challenge ahead of us this weekend.
“What we’ve got to do to is ensure that we are 100 per cent focused on the task, in the build-up to the game and on the day. We can’t allow ourselves to get distracted by the op-ponents or what’s at stake. We’ve got to be on top of our own game, be accurate, be dili-gent, be clinical in what we do, and we’ve got to build a performance that will allow us to get the outcome we want from the game.
“At the start of this competition we said that we had to win our home games. We’ve done that. We said that we had to go away and pick up points, and we managed to secure four on our trips to France, which have put in a good place. We’ve shown the strength of char-acter there is in the group, the culture we’ve worked hard to build in our environment.
“The belief that comes with that has been invaluable for what is a very young squad on the whole and has allowed us to overcome some pretty intense challenges so far. Now, it comes down to this final match and we’ve got to make sure that, as a group, we enjoy the experience and show what we are about as an organisation, on and off the field, with our travelling supporters doing their bit to push us on just like they did last Friday at the Liberty.”
Forthcoming Fixtures
Sun 31 Jan – 2.30pm KO – Ospreys v Glasgow – PRO12
Sun 14 Feb – 5.00pm KO – Munster v Ospreys – PRO12
Fri 19 Feb – 7.05pm KO – Ospreys v Edinburgh – PRO12
Sat 27 Feb – 7.35pm KO – Connacht v Ospreys – PRO12