Ospreys V Sale ERC Challenge Cup Saturday Round of 16 @ 8pm

Bore da. da iawn am guro Sale ! 

We are looking forward to seeing as many of you at Kingsholm as possible . Congratulations on beating Sale. It was fantastic to see such a great atmosphere at The Brewery Field . It's a proper rugby ground and full of rugby history. 

Tickets are on sale from 10 am today https://www.eticketing.co.uk/gloucesterrugby/. 

We look forward to seeing you Friday evening and safe journey to everyone travelling over. 

Cael diwrnod da!

A truly wonderful performance and atmosphere, have to say the atmosphere was better on NYD, what I truly disagree with is the reported attendance figure, there was in no way 4000 less in there last night than NYD.

The only disappointment was some of Owen Williams's kicking, the 2nd half kick off, a couple of kicks from open play which went straight into touch, and a few missed kicks for goal, otherwise he was excellent, the starting pack had the upper hand, with special praise to our young hooker who was on there for nearly the entire match.

Somebody else who had an excellent game IMO was Owen Watkin, even Luke Morgan was putting himself about.

Although as Fiddler has said on a different topic I would also bring in Max Nagy for Gloucester.

Well done to the Ground staff and the Brewery Field for being good enough, and a big slap on the back for our Coaching Staff on providing us with our first win in the KO stages of European Competition, lets hope we can extend that next week.

We got into the ground nice and early after getting a good parking spot and made our way to our seats. The view from our central block was mostly good but there was a pillar, a TV camera & stand and the dugouts blocking our view. When the rain came, the people in the front row got very wet.

Sale started well and probably deservedly so took the lead although Raynal was quick to earn the ire of the Ospreys supporters.

Ospreys defence was really good in the opening quarter and pretty much for the rest of the match. The conditions were not great with a strong wind and driving rain making things difficult for the players.

O Williams missed a penalty from inside his own half but knocked one over from the 10m line to make it 3-3.

The Ospreys scored their try after some dangerous-looking tip on passes that might have been intercepted but Morgan Morris took his try superbly well. 8-3 at half time.

The handling for our second try was brilliant but from my view it looked like Keelan had lost the ball forward so I was somewhat surprised to see him cross the line a second or two later. Fortunately the screen replay showed that he had actually passed the ball back inside and O Williams had somehow passed the ball back to him for a lovely try. 13-3.

Our restart procedures were not great with Du Preez's kicks often falling short of where the Ospreys' catchers were and Sale won the ball back and looked to pass into the midfield. Suddenly RMW burst out of the line, took a brilliant interception and raced away for the try, with O Williams converting 20-3.

Sale, who were living offside and rarely penalised were also struggling in the set piece as they conceded several scrum penalties and not straight lineout free kicks and again the Ospreys' defence was massive.

A poor Sale pass seemed to catch out the Ospreys' defence and their winger scored in the corner. Du Preez slipped as he kicked the conversion which sailed harmlessly wide.

Sale then scored a very dubious looking try with my son convinced they had dropped the ball and me worried that we might concede a penalty try and a yellow card but the try was eventually awarded.

When we won the penalty that O Williams slotted to make it 23-15, the crowd seemed to realise that it was unlikely that Sale would score twice within the remaining three minutes and so it proved as the final whistle went.

The atmosphere was brilliant but I feel that it could easily be replicated in any smaller, more compact stadium and the whole experience confirmed to me that St Helens should be the new home of the Ospreys for 2025/26 onwards.

Well done ospreys, i bloody enjoyed that

Thank you

Just home from the game.

I will write a proper post tomorrow but for now BLOODY COME ON OSPREYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Out bloody standing! Beard was a colossus.

I was a bit concerned about their back row when we had to move Ratti up to lock and even more concerned when Sam dropped out but the front row are imposing themselves and the lighter back row are dealing well with Curry and du Preez. If Nicky, Rhys and Chris can hold their own it could be a second half of penalties.

GAME DAY.

LET'S GO OSPREYS.

Our team

G Thomas S Parry T Botha J Ratti A Beard H Deaves J Tipuric M Morris

RMW O Williams K Giles O Watkin K Williams L Morgan J Walsh

Reps

L Lloyd N Smith R Henry H Sutton M Morse L Davies D Edwards M Nagy

No Rhys Davies is a blow but we are as strong as we possibly can be whereas Sale have not picked some of their bigger guns in Ford, Tuilagi, Cowan-Dickie and Rodd to name a few. In total they have made 11 changes to the team that started against Exeter last week but that side is still very strong.

Here is how our opponents line up

Sale Sharks Starting XV:   

15. Telusa Veainu, 14. Arron Reed, 13. Sam James, 12. Rekeiti Ma-asi-White, 11. Tom O’Flaherty, 10. Rob du Preez, 9. Raffi Quirke, 1. Ross Harrison, 2. Agustin Creevy, 3. Asher Opoku-Fordjour, 4. Ben Bamber, 5. Hyron Andrews, 6. Ben Curry ©, 7. Sam Dugdale, 8. JL du Preez.   

Replacements:   

16. Tommy Taylor, 17. Si McIntyre, 18. James Harper, 19. Tom Ellis, 20. Cam Neild, 21. Nye Thomas, 22. Connor Doherty, 23. Alex Wills. 

Thoughts?

I think the starting team will be something like..

N Smith S Parry T Botha A Beard R Davies J Ratti J Tipuric M Morris

RMW O Williams K Giles K Williams O Watkin L Morgan J Walsh

With all the rain we are having, plus the forecast storm on Sat. Will the game go ahead?

Anyone have any idea as to the state of the pitch, could it be worse than NYD.

Where are we all sitting or standing?

Any news on ticket sales ?

Rhys Davies and Parry would be big misses if they can’t make it. I would be tempted to put Nagy at 14 and Walsh 15 and have Dan Edwards and Owen Williams in the 23

Sale just annihilated Exeter 41-5 so will be coming to us next week in confident mood.