The French club are only one point ahead of Edinburgh and Cockerill doesn’t want them to pull further clear, with just two rounds left of the pool stage.

“I want us to be in the quarter-finals, but Bordeaux have been the form team in France, a really hard competition to play in, and they’ve been consistent,” the Englishman told the Edinburgh website.

“They’ve played 13, won 10, lost two and drawn one. It’s a pretty impressive record and they have some pretty good players, so my job is to manage my team, go there and get as many points as we can, and give some guys an opportunity to play in a really big game.”

Cockerill is eager to avoid a physical confrontation with the TOP 14 leaders, as he knows that wouldn’t end well for Edinburgh, who were held to a 16-16 draw by Bordeaux-Begles at BT Murrayfield in Round 2 in November.

"They’re a very big physical team,” commented the former England hooker. “With the squad we’ve got, to just go to Bordeaux and take them on physically across the board wouldn’t be overly smart. I think we’ve got to be smart in how we play.

“Of course, there are parts of the game where you’ve got to front up and match them, but we can be a little bit smart in how we approach the game and make sure we don’t get into an arm wrestle that suits them more than it suits us.

“We probably should have beaten them at home. We had opportunities and let that slip. It probably shows what a good performance the home game was. We’ve since seen in the year what a good side Bordeaux are, so, suddenly, that 16-16 looks a pretty good result.”

Edinburgh Rugby head coach Richard Cockerill will urge his side to be “smart” when they take on Pool 3 leaders Bordeaux-Begles in Round 5 of the European Rugby Challenge Cup at Stade Chaban-Delmas on Saturday.