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 Ma’afu 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:
“We’ve put ourselves in a strong position in the pool with our performances over the first four rounds but now it’s important that we finish the job off. There’s been a lot spoken and written this week about records, wins in a row, bonus points, whatever, but that’s 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 don’t 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 we’ve seen over the last month or so is that we can win in different ways, we’ve 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 we’ll 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, we’ll 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