Newcastle coach Alan Dickens eager for “little bit more spice” in Challenge Cup clash with Lyon

Lyon sit 12th in the Top14, however, with a 16-point gap on penultimate placed Montauban. They have won five of their 11 fixtures so far in the league.

This won’t let Dickens underestimate them, as he believes “They’re a good quality side. They’ve been in the Top14 and they’ve been competing over the last few years. It’s not a place I’ve been to (Lyon) before, but rugby in France: their sports are passionate. The team we’ll expect is a big pack of forwards and backs that will want to run from everywhere.”

He continued: “I like the European weeks, whichever kind of country you’re playing in: it’s just adding a little bit more spice, opportunity, and it’s something different to the week in, week out of the competition within England. But it’s something we’re looking forward to; we’ll embrace this weekend.”

Looking back on last season, Newcastle (then Falcons) finished bottom of Pool B, having suffered four losses from as many games.

Even so, the side that won just two league fixtures over the course of that year found themselves in the game against two French sides that remained ambitious in all competitions.

The head coach reflected: “I’ll look back at last season: we were competitive. We were competitive away in Pau, we were competitive here against Montpellier. We probably did play some of our stronger players, and it wasn’t necessarily say ‘right, we’re not going to pick any of the players that are going to play in the league.’

“But it was kind of a way of rotation: with playing the players the right amount of game time. Our philosophy is we want to perform in every game we play, and I’ll go down the same line that what we need to do is create competition within this group.”

Following other clubs’ relaxed approach to the European competitions, choosing to prioritise the league over the Champions/Challenge Cup, Dickens remains adamant that he will give the tournament the respect it deserves.

Having won the Challenge Cup twice, once as a player and the other as a coach, the head coach wants to get the best results out of the tournament as possible: “I think it’s a fantastic tournament. Any tournament, talking about gaining different experiences, can only be good for our playing group going forward.

“We’ve talked a lot about sticking together, a lot about how we behave, and when you go away, it’s generally the group that goes away, and certainly when you go to a different country, there’s less supporters there, so it sometimes is that it’s them against us, really, and we’ll go in there and the majority, if not close to all, of the supporters will be supporting Lyon at the weekend, so it’s a great experience for the players.”