The last of this weekend’s United Rugby Championship quarter final match ups sees the Lions head back to Dublin for another clash with Leinster on Saturday night.
Leinster v Lions, Saturday 30th May, Dublin, KO 21:00 (South African time)
Referee: tbc
Assistant Referees: tbc
TMO: tbc
Weather Forecast - Dublin
Leinster:
Leinster finished as runners up to Glasgow Warriors at the end of the regular season. They won 12 and lost 6 of their matches and were two points shy of the table topping Scots and 3 better off than the third placed Stormers.
Leinster forced their way into the top 2 with home wins in each of the last 2 rounds. The first of those came against the Lions, 31-7, also at the Aviva Stadium with Leinster scoring 3 of their 5 tries in the last 10 minutes whilst the Lons managed just the 1.
After that Leinster finished the regular URC season with a thrashing of the Ospreys in another home fixture but last weekend they crashed and burned to 41-19 to Bordeaux in the final of the Champions Cup in Bilbao.
Back to the URC and in South Africa at the start of the season Leinster were thumped 35-0 by 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.
In the outright betting to win the URC title Sportingbet have Leinster topping the boards at even money, Glasgow are 11/4, the Stormers 11/2 and the Bulls are 6/1.
Lions:
The Lions finished seventh in the standings with a record of 10 wins, 1 draw and 7 defeats for 54 log points. They also finished top of the SA Shield after winning 4 of their 6 SA derby matches.
The Lions were on course for a home play off but they slipped out of the top 4 on the back of that defeat to Leinster in Dublin and in their final match they went down 24-17 away to Munster.
In earlier home matches against Irish opposition the Lions beat Connacht 33-21 in Round 16 and they also got the better of Ulster (49-31) in Round 5.
In the outright betting to win the URC title Sportingbet have the Lions priced at 33/1
Line Ups:
Leinster: tbc
Lions: tbc
The Betting,
Average early show
Leinster -13.5 points at 9/10
Lions +13.5 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 the URC Quarter Finals will be available on Brent Graham's betting blog which is available here.
Brent’s plays for Round 16 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.