One of the highlights of the penultimate round of the United Rugby Championship regular season comes from Dublin on Saturday where Leinster host the Lions
Leinster v Lions, Saturday 9th May, Dublin, KO 18:30 (South African time)
Referee: Hollie Davidson (SRU)
Assistants: Keane Davison (IRFU), Stuart Gaffikin (IRFU)
TMO: Andrew McMenemy (SRU)
Weather Forecast - Dublin
Leinster:
Leinster were in Champions Cup semi final action last week and their 29-25 home win over Toulon has set up a final date with Bordeaux on 23rd May.
Before that Leinster have the 2 remaining rounds of the URC regular season to play and they finished Round 16 in fourth place on the log with 53 points, the same total as the third placed Lions, 2 shy of second placed Glasgow Warriors and 3 adrift of the table topping Stormers. Should Leinster stumble a number of chasers including Munster, Cardiff and the Bulls will be eyeing up a top 4 finish and a home quarter final.
In Round 16 Leinster surprisingly lost away to Benetton 29-26 although their Champions Cup preparations would have been a factor.
In South Africa at the start of the season Leinster crashed 35-0 to the Stormers in Cape Town and then lost to the Bulls (39-31) at Loftus. They returned home for a Round 3 home fixture against the Sharks which they won 31-5.
After this Leinster finish up the regular season at home to the Ospreys. In the outright betting to win the URC title Sportingbet have Leinster topping the boards at even money, Glasgow are 7/2, the Stormers 9/2 and the Bulls are 6/1.
Lions:
The Lions finished the previous round in third place with a record of 10 wins, 1 draw and 5 defeats for 53 log points.
The Lions have catapulted into the top 4 on the back of six successive home wins. Most recently they beat a Connacht side (who had turned over the Stormers in Cape Town a week earlier) 33-21 picking up another bonus point. Prior to that they thrashed Glasgow Warriors 54-12. In one earlier match at home to Irish opposition this season the Lions beat Ulster 49-31 in Round 5 and after this they finish up the regular season away to Munster.
The Lions will need to step up on earlier results overseas. In the first 3 rounds they lost at Cardiff, Zebre and Benetton and in Round 10 they drew at the Ospreys.
In the outright betting to win the URC title Sportingbet have the Lions priced at 20/1
Line Ups:
Leinster: tbc
Lions: tbc
The Betting,
Average early show
Leinster -11.5 points at 9/10
Lions +11.5 points at 9/10
Note, odds quoted are available at the time of writing but are subject to change.
Bets:
Tips, more news and betting angles for Round 17 of the URC will be available on Brent Graham's betting blog which is available here.
Plays for Round 13 of Super Rugby will be available here.
Finally, all this week's rugby tips from members of the Goodforthegame community can be found on the weekly rugby thread on our brand new discussion forum. If you haven't done so already, register a forum account here.