OSPREYS STARTING TO PUT FEAR INTO THEIR OPPONENTS
PRIOR to kick-off at Welford Road, Oval Insights predicted that Leicester Tigers had an 80 per cent chance of beating the Ospreys on Friday night.
The Ospreys’ prospects of victory were rated at just 18 per cent.
In fairness, no Welsh side had won at Welford Road since Swansea in 1998.
But statistics don’t always take into account the intangibles.
Those intangibles are why, at the heart of it, Al Pacino talking about the guy willing to die for that inch in Any Given Sunday stirs the soul more than Brad Pitt talking about getting on base in Moneyball. Even with Aaron Sorkin writing the dialogue, the cold, detached numbers don’t pull at you in the same way that talk of pure grit and determination do.
And what the Ospreys showed on Friday night in Leicester went well beyond anything that can be expressed in percentages. It’s a phrase used a lot in sport at the minute, particularly in the States, but it’s true.
The Ospreys: they got that dog in them.
The zeroes and ones said that they should lose this one four out of five times. Well, the numbers be damned. The Ospreys made sure, regardless of performance, they’d come out on the right side of the scoreline.
In yet another six-day turnaround, they backed up the victory over French champions Montpellier with even more late drama.
It’s the mark of a team built by Toby Booth and his coaching staff that – while far from the finished article – they have a grit to them that belies whatever nonsense is going on in Welsh rugby.
Contracts can’t be offered, uncertainty reigns and it feels like we’re only ever one catastrophe away from someone mentioning a merger.
Never mind, Booth’s Ospreys will, as his mantra, find a way. It’s a phrase he can’t help but use. It’s printed on his notepad and he’ll almost certainly spout it post-match.
Against the French and English champions, he noted they ‘found a way’. He was also rueful they hadn’t ‘found a way’ earlier in the season.
Whether it’s intentional or subconscious, it’s meaningful.
Even before they toppled the best that France and England has to offer, there were signs that this side were willing to go to the well one last time when things got tough.
When Booth took over the job, the ship needed steadying at Llandarcy. It wasn’t the easiest of starts, with one win in his first 10 matches. The following season saw a five-game losing run, eventually ended by a gritty victory over Edinburgh.
That win was important for two reasons. One was the character shown to come back from 14-3 down when confidence was low. But more than that, it was the day of Ifan Phillips’ birthday.
The hooker had been involved in an accident that resulted in his leg being amputated, ending his promising career abruptly. To deliver that performance, and more importantly that result, on such a day showed what this side is about.
They’d finish the season as the highest-placed Welsh side after a late run, earning qualification for the Champions Cup once again.
Even the start of this year, with all the promise of the Welsh Shield and a decent pre-season behind them, had been a testing one. Yet they’ve stuck it out and are now reaping the rewards.
Few would have given them much hope in Europe when the initial draw was into made, December let alone with when one they win crept from nine.
Matches against the champions of England and France were between them and a first foray into the knockout stages of Europe’s top-tier competition since the Galacticos era missed out for the last time in 2010.
Some would make the point that it’s perhaps easier to qualify for the latter stages in the current format of Europe than it once was, but then again, the Ospreys finished dead last in Pool A last year – so it’s not quite the case that it’s easier to qualify than not.
Maybe it’s the task put in front of them that might make this side that little bit better than the Galacticos era. Granted, that side won silverware, but on the European front, they ultimately flattered to deceive.
There’s little danger of Booth’s Ospreys doing that. Already, in getting three wins out of four against the best England and France have to offer probably puts this European campaign above the other forays into the knockout stages in the late noughties.
Frankly, it’s one of the great achievements in Welsh domestic rugby.
In fact, when you look at that side, you’d be able to make a solid case that this current crop makes up for the lack of star power with a resolve that is levels above. They’re better coached, better organised and perhaps better suited to finally winning a knockout match.
Whoever they face in the last 16, they’ll be quietly confident they can get through.
The defensive tenacity shown throughout Friday night – whether that was Michael Collins and Cai Evans denying Harry Simmons, keeping out the Tigers just before the break or the scramble shown ahead of Keelan Giles’ second-half score – will keep them in the contest.
Then there’s the one area where the numbers truly do stack up. Up front, this Ospreys side is unabashedly, unashamedly formidable. They’ve a pack that will keep them in matches until the very end.
In the past month, they’ve outmuscled Montpellier twice, beaten the Scarlets and Cardiff, matched unbeaten Leinster on the gainline and now sent the Leicester pack backwards well after the clock went red.
The work that Richard Kelly and Duncan Jones have done with their pack means there’ll always be a platform right up until the final whistle.
That can’t be underestimated. They won’t be fancied, exactly, with the attack perhaps yet to fire on all cylinders, but that’ll matter little inside the group.
It’s a group that will sing a bit of Elvis afterwards and will end up tweeting about kebabs the next morning. Quotes about being closeknit are a dime a dozen, but actions speak louder than words as the Ospreys demonstrated on Friday night.
Leicester coach Richard Wigglesworth noted afterwards that Tigers flanker Tommy Reffell had been “the best Welsh player on the pitch, by a mile”. Perhaps, but the Ospreys had more Welshmen on the night.
Sometimes, the numbers don’t lie.