Preview: Wasps bid to halt Lyon’s winning run
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Wasps will need to halt Lyon’s six-match winning streak in the EPCR Challenge Cup this season in the clubs’ first ever meeting in Europe if they are to progress to their second final in the competition on Saturday.
Lyon are the only team in the competition to have won all their games in it this season, while Wasps, the 2003 winners, dropped down into it at the Round of 16 stage from the Heineken Champions Cup.
The game at the Matmut Stadium de Gerland, which kicks off at 12:30 (UK & Irish time), will be broadcast live on BT Sport and beIN SPORTS.
Pool positions
Lyon: 1st, Pool B
Wasps: Demoted from Heineken Champions Cup
Quarter-finals
Lyon 35 Glasgow Warriors 27
Edinburgh Rugby 30 Wasps 34
Leading 2021/22 points-scorers
Lyon: Leo Berdeu (46)
Wasps: Jimmy Gopperth (33)
Key quotes
Patrick Sobela (Lyon captain): “If we want to beat Wasps, who are accustomed to big European games, we must be more aware of our potential and push our limits a little more.”
Lee Blackett (Wasps head coach): “Lyon are in form and are a big collision team who score tries in broken field. If we made this game an individual game and it came down to individual moments, they have people who can really hurt you.”
Just one step from the Final
— EPCR Challenge Cup (@ChallengeCup_) May 10, 2022
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Other key stats
- Lyon will be the 17th different TOP 14 opponent that Wasps will have met across the Heineken Champions Cup and Challenge Cup.
- Lyon have reached the semi-final stage for the first time in Europe. Meanwhile, Wasps will be playing their seventh semi-final, having reached this stage three times before in both the Heineken Champions Cup (W2, L1) and Challenge Cup (W1,L2).
- Wasps won the Challenge Cup in 2002/03. However, they lost their two subsequent semi-finals in the competition – to Cardiff Rugby in 2009/10 and Bath Rugby in 2013/14.
- Wasps have won five of their last seven European matches against TOP 14 opposition (L2), including wins against Toulouse (Heineken Champions Cup) and Biarritz (Challenge Cup) already this season.
- Lyon have a 100% win rate against Premiership opponents at home in the Challenge Cup, winning all six such matches, including victories against Gloucester Rugby and Worcester Warriors this season.
- Wasps have won 29/30 lineouts on their own throw in the Challenge Cup this season, giving them the second-best success rate (97%) of any side who have played more than one game. Meanwhile, only Benetton (20) have misplaced more throws than Lyon (16), leaving their accuracy rate at 81%.
- Lyon duo Clement Laporte and Ethan Dumortier have both made six line breaks in the Challenge Cup this season, more than anyone else in the competition.
- Teammate Davit Niniashvili (11) tops the charts for offloads, ahead of Laporte (7) and Lyon prop Demba Bamba (6).
- Wasps’ Alfie Barbeary has scored four tries in just two matches in the Challenge Cup this season. Only Gloucester’s Santiago Socino (5) has scored more. Barbeary also beat seven defenders in the quarter-finals last weekend.
- No one has made more breakdown steals than Lyon pair Colby Fainga’a and Patrick Sobela this season in the Challenge Cup, both notching six so far, the same as Biarritz’s Steffon Armitage.
