Edinburgh up for Paris battle
Edinburgh will be looking to make sure they keep their hopes for a Heineken Cup quarterfinal place on track when they travel to Paris to face Racing Metro at the Stade Yves Du Manoir.
The Scottish side know they have to make it a clean sweep of three home defeats for the Parisians, both Cardiff Blues and London Irish returned home from their trip across the channel with a victory.
But Michael Bradley’s Edinburgh side don’t have a great track record on the road in Europe, having won only twice in 25 games away from home in European rugby’s premier tournament.
But the Scots will be determined to end their eight-year wait for a side from north of the border to qualify for the last eight of the Heineken Cup when they run out against one of the big guns of the Top 14.
Racing Metro, who are only in their second season in Europe, are propping up Pool 2 and will be looking to restore some pride after a disappointing campaign but they the could still have a bearing on who qualifies for the quarterfinals.
The French side play both Edinburgh and the Cardiff Blues, who are level on points and battling out to qualify for the knock-out stages, in their final two Pool games of this season.
The teams:
Racing Metro: 15 Juan Imhoff, 14 Virimi Vakatawa, 13 Frans Steyn, 12 Fabrice Estebanez, 11 Julien Saubade, 10 Juan Martin Hernandez, 9 Sebastien Descons, 8 Sebastien Chabal, 7 Antoine Batut, 6 John Leo’o, 5 Francois van der Merwe, 4 Lionel Nallet, 3 Juan Pablo Orlandi, 2 Gregory Arganese, 1 Andrea Lo Cicero.
Replacements: 16 Thomas Bianchin, 17 Eddy Ben Arous, 18 Benjamin Sa, 19 Bernard Le Roux, 20 Mathieu Loree, 21 Jonathan Wisniewski, 22 Remi Vaquiin, 23 Henry Chavancy.
Edinburgh: 15 Chris Paterson, 14 Lee Jones, 13 Nick De Luca, 12 Matt Scott, 11 Tim Visser, 10 Greig Laidlaw, 9 Mike Blair, 8 Netani Talei 7 Ross Rennie 6 David Denton 5 Sean Cox 4 Grant Gilchrist 3 Geoff Cross 2 Ross Ford 1 Allan Jacobsen.
Replacements: 16 Alun Walker, 17 Kyle Traynor, 18 Jack Gilding, 19 Esteban Lozada, 20 Roddy Grant, 21 Phil Godman, 22 Tom Brown, 23 Jim Thompson.
Date: Friday, January 13
Kick-off: 21.00 (20.00 GMT)
Venue: Stade Yves du Manoir
Referee: Dave Pearson (England)
