Lions brace for bruising URC battle against Ospreys

The Lions are prepared for another physical challenge when they take on Ospreys in their United Rugby Championship clash at Ellis Park on Friday night (kickoff 7pm).

Having enjoyed a resurgence over the past two weeks with a bonus-point win over Cardiff and a bruising two-point victory over Munster, the Lions head into the match with plenty of confidence.

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“Ospreys are a nice big physical team. They pride themselves on their physicality and they pride themselves on gaining momentum, so similar to Munster, it is a physical challenge for us,” said Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen.

“If we don’t stop momentum and aren’t effective and accurate enough at our attacking and defensive breakdowns, I think they could get ascendancy there and then they have the ability to punish us, so those areas are big focus points for us.”

The home side will look to their powerful forward pack to lay the platform for their backline to fire off, with the backs having run in five of the Lions’ six tries over the past two weekends.

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After a quiet start to the year, they finally look to be hitting their straps and they will be aiming to put Ospreys under pressure with quick ball and strong, direct running.

“I think we’ve got some confidence in our attack now but last week we made a bit of a dog fight, so hopefully we can stay away from that and exploit space on the outside with our speedsters Edwill (van der Merwe) and Rabz (Maxwane),” said Lions captain Burger Odendaal.

“Hopefully we can keep turning things around attack wise this weekend. I think we let ourselves down and mainly relied on our defence against Munster, so hopefully we can change that around.

“Also a big focus for us as outside backs is to secure the breakdown when we take it wide. I think we gave away some turnovers, especially at the wide breakdowns, so that’s something that we need to fix.”

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Prop Carlu Sadie and fullback Quan Horn have been bracketed in for this weekend’s game, leaving question marks over whether they will be fit to play in the match.

“Quan just passed his fitness test, so he should be ready to go. Carlu unfortunately has a big back spasm, so we will probably wait until just before warm-up, when we do our final activations, to make that call,” said Van Rooyen.