The Ospreys, having lost a close local derby to the Scarlets, travel to the Cardiff City Stadium for the second of three local derbies over the festive period to face the Cardiff Blues who narrowly beat the Dragons on Boxing Day. Hopefully the Ospreys will have some of their injured/ill players back and the good surface should produce fast, open running rugby.
If the players who missed the Scarlets match are available, I think the side will look something like this:-
N Smith* I Phillips T Botha A Beard R Davies W Griffiths** J Tipuric M Morris (Or *G Thomas & ** D Lydiate)
R Webb S Myler G North K Williams O Watkin* M Protheroe D Evans (Or *T Thomas-Wheeler)
Reps
R Jones S Otten(Surely he has to get a place soon) M Fia L Ashley, O Cracknell
R Morgan-Williams J Thomas S Williams
Discuss
Never listen to pundits without skin in the game.
I know I’m biased but I don’t agree with the likes of Jonathan Davies saying our game on NYD was boring. He needs to remember where we were last season and the fact that although 4 wins this season is not astounding, it’s twice as much as we managed last season. I didn’t find our game boring and actually liked watching what we were trying. Our driving maul is impressive as is our scrum and the Fact that we are starting to get the basics right is good news surely. I think if we’d thrown it round with wreckless abandon we’d have been accused of not earning the right to do so.
Cardiff were awful though, so maybe that’s what they were peeved about.
Double the Dragons and beat Zebras to close out 3-4 and I think that would be enough.
The alternative view of the match https://www.ospreyssupporterstrust.co.uk/post/monday-morning-quarterback-view-8
Great weekend for us with Drags and Glasgow losing.
Fair play to Boothe he has made one hell of a difference in the relatively short time he ha been in charge. May he continue.
Great performance, very pleased with that. Crushed them.
Match report - https://www.ospreyssupporterstrust.co.uk/post/cardiff-blues-v-ospreys-new-year-s-day-19-35
Come on ospreys! I guess we left a lot of scores out there but that was a domination of a side that I can’t remember us doing in a long long time. Great effort by all involved.
Happy New Year Ospreys - That is a great performance.
Good first half Ospreys.
THAT WAS A JOKE OF A YELLOW CARD for Lydiate.
Oh flip.
Cardiff Blues: Hallam Amos; Josh Adams, Rey Lee-Lo, Garyn Smith, Aled Summerhill; Jason Tovey, Tomos Williams; Rhys Carré, Kristian Dacey, Dmitri Arhip, Seb Davies, Rory Thornton, Shane Lewis-Hughes, James Botham, Josh Turnbull
Replacements: Liam Belcher, Corey Domachowski, Keiron Assiratti, James Ratti, Alun Lawrence, Lloyd Williams, Luke Scully, Willis Halaholo
Ospreys team...
We’d better pray for wind and rain because otherwise we’re in danger of being sliced apart.
I would like to see a back line of Webb, Myler, Watkins, North, Morgan, Giles and Protheroe with Ventner, Williams and Evans on the bench.
If Smith, Griffiths and Protheroe return, I’m going for an away win for us.
If the game is fast, the Blues will beat us easily. We are only set up to play slow rugby.
Is Parry definitely out? Might Giles get a run from the bench?
Is Cardiff city stadium an artificial turf? I believe the game I’d be in played there as opposed to the Arms Park.