A win on Saturday would guarantee us a place in the quarter-finals, but if we didn’t achieve that then a victory over the Dragons on Sunday week would do the job. Perpignan, need two wins to reach the knock-out stages but rely not only on beating us and Edinburgh in their last two pool matches, but also on Edinburgh beating the Dragons and then Dragons beating us. Then bonus points would come into it.

However, we must still be looking to win this weekend, but our foes will come out all guns blazing to attempt to get the result they need.

Nobody needs reminding what happened in South Wales or the Scottish capital in our previous two away games in Europe, when the Falcons played Gwent and Edinburgh, and we will need all of the grit, determination and intelligence we showed in those victories to defeat Perpignan, who boast French internationals Frederic Cermeno, Bernard Goutta, Ludovic Loustau, Nicolas Mas and Christophe Porcu, as well as England squad member Dan Luger and All-Black Number 8 Scott Robertson.

While we come into the tie on the back of two league wins against Leeds and Sale, Perpignan lost their last match at Bourgoin on December 23rd by a tiny 33-32 margin, but defeated Biarritz 20-18 the previous weekend.

We have of course played at the Stade Aime Giral once before, in September 1997 in our first competitive game outside of the UK. In a bad-tempered Saturday night match, after winning 60-3 at Kingston Park two weeks earlier, we triumphed 27-13 through two tries from Va’aiga Tuigamala and one from Tim Stimpson. Stimpson converted all three and added two penalties. Our team that evening was Tim Stimpson, Jim Naylor, Va’aiga Tuigamala, Alan Tait, Stuart Legg, Rob Andrew, Gary Armstrong, Nick Popplewell, Ross Nesdale, Paul Van-Zandvliet, Garath Archer, Doddie Weir, Pat Lam, Richard Arnold, and Dean Ryan ©. Steve O’Neill was used as a replacement.

That season, when we also met Edinburgh in the pool stage (albeit in the European Shield), we made it to the semi-finals of the tournament. Every Falcon would be ecstatic if we got so far this time, however, there are 160 minutes of pool rugby still to play and anything can happen in that time.

We have a mixed record away to French teams in Europe, having beaten Perpignan, Narbonne, Begles-Bordeaux and Grenoble, whilst losing to Biarritz, Stade Aurillac, Pau, Toulouse and Montferrand. And although every Falcon must be wishing we still had Marius Hurter in the front row for this game, with Jonny Wilkinson back in the side and a centre partnership of Mathew Tait and Jamie Noon flourishing, we have as good a chance as ever of succeeding in getting to the knock-out stage of the European Cup for the first time.

Mathew Tait on the burst yet again in the home match

No prediction this week, anything can happen. And since the Falcons are involved, it probably will. Lets just hope we can build on five wins in our last six games and rescue something from the season.

15 Joe Shaw

14 Tom May

13 Mathew Tait

12 Jamie Noon

11 Michael Stephenson

10 Jonny Wilkinson (joint captain)

9 James Grindal

1 Ian Peel (joint captain)

2 Andy Long

3 Micky Ward

4 Luke Gross

5 Stuart Grimes

6 Mike McCarthy

7 Colin Charvis

8 Phil Dowson

Replacements:

James Isaacson

Matt Thompson

Andy Buist

Semo Sititi

Dave Walder or Mark Wilkinson

Hall Charlton

Mark Mayerhofler

The USAP squad is:-

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