It's simple for Osprey seconds

Feb 17 2008 by Simon Roberts, Wales On Sunday

Ospreys 37-7 Connacht

THEY may be chasing a remarkable treble in the Heineken Cup, Anglo-Welsh Cup and the Six Nations, but the Ospreys showed they haven’t completely forgotten the Magners League last night.

The reigning champions, who are in the running for a title defence, made easy work of Connacht with a comfortable victory by their second string at the Liberty Stadium.

With the bulk of Warren Gatland’s Wales side made up of players from Ospreylia, they can rightly lay claim to any Grand Slam success in the Six Nations.

Not even an ambitious organisation like the Ospreys could have dreamed of that at the start of the season.

The Ospreys set a world record for the number of players from one club, region or province in a national side in the historic victory over England at Twickenham.

But rumours Wales are considering wearing a black kit against Italy next weekend have proved unfounded, even though Wales’ Kiwi coach Gatland, a former All Black hooker, would probably have no qualms about that at all.

And it simply backs up the claims of Ospreys coach Lyn Jones that his Board has put together the best non-international squad ever assembled in Wales.

This clash, on paper, looked like the acid test of the strength in depth of Jones’ squad, despite his second team already having the scalps of Bath and the Wallabies to their name.

But in the event, it was far from that.

In reality, this game was a stroll and got their league campaign back on track.

The Ospreys may have qualified for the Heineken Cup quarter-finals and the Anglo-Welsh Cup semi-finals, but their form in the Magners League hasn’t been that impressive for most of this campaign.

They had won only one of their last four league outings and that was at home to their big-city neighbours, the Blues, on New Year’s Eve.

But Connacht, the minnows of Irish provincial rugby, have not won in Wales since – ironically – a narrow victory over the Ospreys at the Gnoll back in November 2004.

That never looked like changing in Swansea last night.

Wing Nikki Walker, flanker Marty Holah, Mike Phillips and replacement fly-half Gareth Owen all crossed for tries to get the vital bonus point against a Connacht side in damage limitation mode.

This was the bulk of the Ospreys’ shadow squad, with only the likes of Wales scrum-half Phillips and Scottish wing Walker in the starting line-up, the rest being given the weekend off due to Six Nations duties.

But this was a side which still had the Ospreys’ ‘big three’ – Justin Marshall, Filo Tiatia and Holah – in the line-up, even if Marshall was playing out of position at full-back.

And it was a chance to have a look at the next generation of the team, like flanker Ben Lewis and centre Jonathan Spratt.

Both made impressive contributions and would have learnt so much from playing alongside the likes Holah and Mark Taylor, the Wales and Lions centre.

The Ospreys started brightly enough with two early penalties by fly-half Shaun Connor, but the game soon became a slug-fest between two sides determined to run through each other.

Prop Paul James came the closest to providing the Liberty Stadium crowd with anything to cheer, but his touchdown in the corner towards the end of the first half was ruled out by the video referee.

Walker soon made amends when he conjured something out of nothing to race in from 40 metres for his solo try.

Then a break by Tiatia from the base of a scrum put Holah in for the home side’s second try and a comfortable 20-0 lead at the break.

The home side failed to make their dominance count, despite Phillips’ and Owen’s late tries, but the Ospreys have much bigger things ahead than the Magners League.