With two weeks between Sunday's fantastic last-gasp win against Ulster and our next match away to Edinburgh on Friday March 1st, the Ospreys will have, for the first time in a while, some selection headaches as more players return to the land of the fit. Potentially Rhys Davies, Morgan Morris and Owen Williams could return to the squad so Toby will have to find a way to fit everyone into the 23 man squad. Morgan Morse will likely be away with the U20s so I have not included him.
Edinburgh sit two places above us in 5th but there is just a point between them and us so a win should see us move up the table but that depends on how the other teams around us get on. There are just 5 points separating 7 teams from 4th to 7th in the table.
Potential Squad?
N Smith R Henry S Parry L Lloyd T Botha B Warren V Sekekete R Davies J Ratti H Deaves J Tipuric W Hickey M Morris
RMW AN Other9 D Edwards K Giles K Williams E Boshoff M Protheroe J Walsh O Williams A Cuthbert
Starting XV?
TBC
Finally got around to watching the game.
All things considered we did well and that last line out apart, we had a couple of chances that we did not take.
I hope that Boschof is in the mix for the outside centre position for next season after GN has left , there is something about that man. If he is interested of course.
Think the run had to come to and end. Real chance to nick it at the end but the line out did not function. Having two non jumping locks makes it easy for the opposition to target Tips and Warren cannot hold up when the scrum pressure comes on.
But given the help they had from the national team relative to the help we had a losing bonus point was the best we could have hoped for although fouling up that final line out was essentially the game.
Have we ever won a game with this referee in charge? He is atrocious.
Wiki have Rudolf at 14 stone 2 pounds but his vid-clips show a much more robust figure which the Cheetahs site informs me is 16 st 6. His style is very much like Morgan Morris going forward but maybe a bit better in the jackal.
I still don't think we stand a chance but that is what this season is all about so far. Overcoming the odds.
15. Emiliano Boffelli, 14. Harry Paterson, 13. Mark Bennett, 12. Matt Currie, 11. Chris Dean, 10. Ben Healy,
9. Ben Vellacott CAPTAIN 1. Boan Venter, 2. Dave Cherry, 3. WP Nel, 4. Sam Skinner, 5. Glen Young, 6. Tom Dodd, 7. Hamish Watson, 8. Viliame Mata.
16. Patrick Harrison, 17. Luan de Bruin, 18. Javan Sebastian, 19. Marshall Sykes, 20. Ben Muncaster, 21. Ali Price, 22. James Lang, 23. Wes Goosen.
Toby has confirmed that Morgan Morris, Rhys Davies and Owen Williams will be available for this game. Nothing on Owen Watkin yet but it is fairly safe to assume he will not be released from Wales, however, Edinburgh will have 7 Scottish players released back to them.
Morse won't be away with the U20's because they don't have a game this weekend and even if they did, we still get priority.
Wouldn't be suprised to see him miss out on the squad though, particularly if Morris and Davies are fit. He's played a lot of rugby recently and seems to have picked up a few knocks.
The countdown to the match has started. The squad will be named either on Wednesday or Thursday.