The Ospreys ended 2024 in a strange situation when they announced that Toby Booth had left with immediate effect and Mark Jones was in charge. With the West Wales derby looming on the horizon, many supporters were worried that Toby's departure would have a negative effect on the squad. As it transpired, this would not be the case with the boys finding a way with a magical, last gasp win against the Scarlets that sets them up nicely for 2025.
The euphoria from Saturday must be turned into positive momentum when we travel to the CAP to face Cardiff in the first fixture of 2025. I don't recall any significant injuries to the squad from Saturday so I think we will see a very similar squad as last time. It is not like we have the squad depth to rotate that much any way.
Squad from
G Thomas G Phillips
S Parry L Lloyd
T Botha R Henry/B Warren
B Spencer J Fender W Griffiths
J Morgan J Tipuric M Morris M Morse
RMW KH
D Edwards
K Giles D Kasende
O Watkin K Williams E Boshoff
J Walsh I Hopkins
Discuss.
How long is Beard out for approximately?
Beard berated and underated
Think he means red card. Our driving line out was a mess. It’s one thing not moving forward it’s another to lose the ball 3 times in the melee of bodies.
Listening to the post match presser and both Mark Jones and Gar Thom spoke about growing the attack and the players being excited about coming to work. Not a slight on Toby but this fresh outlook could be the next step we needed to take.
And our scrum brutalised them , whichever 3 they had on the park. I mean whichever front row.
I was sitting in the middle of a lot of Cardiff fans, they were not happy after the first 10 minutes or so. They were screaming to get the ball off the park with us down 14 men gutted we didn’t win that one. I think we are getting better Rhys Davies had hell of a game for first game back. Dan Edwards is just getting better all the time. We need to start winning now.
I thought RMW gave a very good performance as did Hardy. Hopefully it means RWW is a better player on artificial tracks than he is on heavier ones and if so that would be good for the future
Lots of pluses and lots of minuses. Kasende was superb Nagy looked out of form and made two big errors that cost one certain try and one probable. Thought both 9’s were very good and it is not often I can say that. Scrum a real plus with Henry again doing the business from the bench. Line out not good nor was defence of the maul. We bungled a good half dozen attacking mauls which would have iced the game. Great defensive scheme to keep them to only 2 maul tries on a fast track with only 6 backs.
Should have won by twenty points.
Kasende in for Hopkins.
First points to Cardiff with an unconverted try and they lead 5-0 after 20 minutes. We almost scored but Morris knocked on over the line and Dan Eds has missed a penalty. I am slightly behind the actual game.
We’ll need to play out of our skins I think.
Putting a list of unavailable players is very handy rather than guessing and misinterpreting selection
I take it Kasende is being rested?
I think Lewis Jones played the full 80 for Bridgend up at RGC while Kyle Harris replaced an injured Liam Edwards at lock and Luke Price had a very good game so there are some alternatives. None of the Ospreys allocated players turned out for Swansea or Aberavon AFIK.
I hope they are both involved, they will make hell,of a difference.
Rhys Davies and James Ratti could both be involved.
Sorry about missing most of the comments in the last 2 days and have to thank Jason for keeping the site going, it would be pretty dull for me without this site, I hope everyone had a great day yesterday and hopefully we can keep the good form going onto the New Year and beyond.
Seasonal Greetings to you, for compiling a thankless task, with informing us on the latest News from the Os. Much appreciated
Merry Christmas to you all.
Thanks for your posts.