So, after scintillating victories against Montepellier, twice, and Leicester Tigers, away, the Ospreys assured themselves of a Last 16 tie away against Premiership leaders, Saracens. The tie is expected to be played on Sunday Apr 2nd, 3pm kick-off at the StoneX Arena. Both sides will be welcoming back players from the 6 Nations so the tie could depend on who has the least amount of injuries and which team is able to re-integrate their international players in the quickest way.
Ospreys will definitely be without the injured Jac Morgan, Alex Cuthbert and Gareth Anscombe, but it seems as if the rest of the squad will be available for selection.
Likely Squad
N Smith G Thomas S Parry D Lake T Francis T Botha AWJ A Beard R Davies E Roots J Tipuric M Morris H Sutton/D Lydiate
R Webb RMW O Williams J Walsh G North K Williams O Watkin K Giles I Hopkins M Collins/J Hawkins
Starting Side?
N Smith S Parry T Francis AWJ A Beard E Roots J Tipuric M Morris
R Webb O Williams G North K Williams O Watkin K Giles I Hopkins
The best Welsh number 9 was on the field yesterday , why we let him go to accommodate a pensioner who failed in France whilst following the money ? don’t mention his pass ! hope he’s off to Japan as is rumoured
Gutted we lost but the team put in one hell of shift, first half we were excellent. That quick thrown killed us off but well played Saracens but we were not disgraced by a long way.
A brave attempt but once we lost the lead there was only one winner. A creaky scrum and lineout did not help and we have pace and power but lack guile and agility.
The winners of this game will face an away trip to holders La Rochelle who overcame a valiant effort from Gloucester.
No posts from me tomorrow during the game as I will be there watching it.
Saracens Men team to play Ospreys:
1 Mako Vunipola
2 Jamie George
3 Marco Riccioni
4 Maro Itoje
5 Hugh Tizard
6 Andy Christie
7 Ben Earl
8 Billy Vunipola
9 Ivan van Zyl
10 Owen Farrell (c)
11 Sean Maitland
12 Nick Tompkins
13 Alex Lozowski
14 Max Malins
15 Alex Goode
Replacements:
16 Tom Woolstencroft
17 Eroni Mawi
18 Alec Clarey
19 Nick Isiekwe
20 Jackson Wray
21 Aled Davies
22 Duncan Taylor
23 Alex Lewington
Looking at the respective 23 man squads, I think that we could get the edge at the set piece. Sarries' scrum was struggling earlier in the season but they are now around 90% so we should target them there. The second row and back row battle is going to be immense.
I also think we have a slightly stronger bench.
A little surprised to see Collins at 15 but he should be fine there. Gutted for Keelan but it is good to have strength in depth coming off the bench.
Just had a quick look around the Sarries Fan Forum and they have a thread talking about who they are going to play in the Quarter Finals. Confident lot eh?
Just listened to the Pre Match Press Conference and it seems that the Squad has a clean bill of health, with the only worry being Jack Walsh who is progressing through the concussion protocols and should be okay.
The team is training indoors at the Vale so it unlikely that we will get our usual Thursday team update from Paul.
Original post above edited.
My stomach just hit the floor.....
We have the Georgian Ref: Nika Amashukeli and Brian MacNiece as TMO.
Some good news coming out of the Benetton press conference is that Booth anticipates that Anscombe and Lake could well be involved in this game which would be a huge bonus for us.
Got our Saracens tickets this morning…couldn’t believe how quickly the ones in south stand went!
Are there any non Season ticket holders who want to get tickets for the game?
I think that I have managed to sort out my tickets for the game direct from Saracens (these are disabled tickets only) so I could maybe get a couple of tickets as a ST holder and then let you have them?
So Sunday April 2nd at 3pm, I know there is no need to say this, but it would be good to get an early indication of a decent Ticket allocation for this and the appropriate number of Buses made available.
What size of ticket allocation can we expect from Saracens.
Really hoping for a Saturday fixture as whole family wants to go. A Friday or Sunday fixture again would probably scupper it for us due to school impact for kids. Fingers crossed for a sat.
Let’s hope we take a large contingent of supporters to the game