Booth’s side fresh from back-to-back Welsh derby wins over the Scarlets and Cardiff will come into the match against the French side full of confidence but know very well the task that awaits against a strong and physical Perpignan side.
Despite their struggles in the French Top 14, much like Montpellier just over three weeks ago, Perpignan come into the game as favourites with a squad full of talent assembled on a budget of a much higher scale than the Ospreys.
On home soil however, Booth is hopeful the injury-ravaged region can play cleverly to cause an upset and repeat some of the Ospreys European exploits of the previous season to put qualification back in his side’s hands.
“We’re looking forward to it. We knew this was going to be a busy period and this is now quite a pivotal part for us with the scheduling,” said Booth.
“We know this is an important part of our season. You don’t win anything in January, but you certainly need to get yourself in a position to progress to knock-out rounds.
“We enjoyed our European conquests last year and irrespective of the change of the competition we see this as no different.
“We are training out there without two full teams out and can’t play people in the right positions. We can’t prepare as we would like, but as we have always said, we will try to see the opportunity in it and find a way and see how it gets us.
“One thing I know about this group is that they will work hard and play tough and whatever shirt number is on their back they will give it their best. That is the exciting thing about this group.
“We have looked at them [Perpignan] and they have had two different teams. Survival in your league campaign is very important and as they were languishing for a bit, I can understand why.
“We don’t know which team is going to turn up, but we will just focus on ourselves. However, they have had some positive results in recent weeks which makes it even more challenging for us.
“They will be confident and will certainly be big and physical. As we found out when we went to Montpellier, when you lose the physical battle, it makes it very tough.
“We can’t manufacture something we don’t have, so we have to be smart like in the Cardiff second half where we used our resources cleverly in order to give ourselves the chance to win the game.
“There is a real positive feeling, even in the Montpellier game where we came very much second on the scoreboard. Bar the try conversation rate, we spent the same amount of time getting into the red zone, but they crossed the line, and we couldn’t. You have to be clinical.
“It is difficult to predict [the outcome of qualification] because most European fixtures are volatile in rounds three and four. You could [get through to the knock-out phase with two wins] if other results go your way.
“We will see where that takes us as we want to progress. We have talked about the opportunity it provides us and how much we enjoyed our experience last year, so we will do our very best to make sure that happens.”
Whilst Booth is faced with the prospect of limited resources for the next two European fixtures, he revealed many of his walking wounded will be back in contention for resumption of the URC league campaign in mid-February.
“They [the Cheetah’s loanees’] are cup-tied. Post this window that won’t change, but after these two European games we get a little bit of rest bite from a game perspective, and we can lick our wounds.
“We are looking to get a significant amount of people back in that month. We’re hoping to have Alex Cuthbert, Toby Fricker, Dom Morris, Morgan Morris and Tips [Justin Tipuric] back.
“We are hopeful from that point of view that we would have weathered the storm. The last four or five weeks though have been challenging for sure.”
[Lead image: Ospreys Rugby]
