Emirates Lions Forwards coach Barend Pieterse said they will need to be tactically more astute than they’ve been this season as well as standing up to Montpellier’s massive pack of forwards on Saturday at the GGL Stadium, Montpellier at 22:00 (SA Time).
It is expected that the Montpellier side will include Springboks Cobus Reinach, Jan Serfontein, All Blacks wing George Bridge and Italy playmaker Paolo Garbisi.
“I think it is obviously going to be a hectic challenge. If you look at their squad, I don’t understand where they are lying, where they are at the moment in the Top14 given the squad they have. Our challenge is going to be to stick with what has been working for us in our EPCR Challenge games over the past few months.”
“They’ve got big forwards and our main challenge is going to be upfront with the players they have. We haven’t seen the squad they have chosen. But we think they will select a strong squad because of the position they are currently in."
“You’ve got challenges in every match. A big focus for us from the forwards point of view, we need to be clinical in how we manage the game, and how we play. Two things for us, if we can stand up to their forwards and where we are playing. We don’t want to play from everywhere on the field so territory will be very important for us.”
“It would be wrong to say we want to play the way we want to play at Ellis Park. Given the conditions and the time, we want to play a territory game, a little bit different from what we normally play."
"But again if we get there and it is perfect weather, we will always be a team that will go for it first. But I think to get into the game and get behind them will be our first priority of the game, we will want to play a more territorial game. "
“I think the most important thing is that the squad sticks to what we have been doing throughout the season, if you look at the game against Perpignan, that squad did exactly what we asked of them."
“It’s more about sticking to our system. It’s not about a first-choice or second-choice squad, it’s really about the whole squad.”