Lyn Jones seeks a silver lining in EDF Cup final

Apr 7 2008 South Wales Echo

OSPREYS coach Lyn Jones has called on his players to redeem themselves in next weekend’s EDF Cup final after their Heineken Cup horror show.

Jones’ star-spangled outfit bombed out of Europe in ignominious fashion at Vicarage Road yesterday despite having 13 of Wales’ Grand Slam heroes on duty.

What made the defeat all the more shocking was that they had thumped the same opponents 30-3 just two weeks earlier in the EDF semi-final at the Millennium Stadium.

Now they have one last shot at silverware this season in the shape of Saturday’s EDF final against Leicester at Twickenham – a repeat of last year’s showpiece which the Tigers won 41-35.

Reflecting on his team’s Euro exit, Jones admitted: “This is a huge disappointment and we are not hiding away from it.

“We’ve got to take it on the chin. What is important is how we bounce back next week.

“We have an opportunity to go to Twickenham next Saturday to play against Leicester in the EDF final.

“We were disappointed last year to lose by a score to them. Next week offers an opportunity to take them on again and redeem ourselves. It’s something to raise ourselves for.”

Skipper Ryan Jones echoed this theme as he gave his own take on yesterday’s surprise defeat.

“We’ve got to put this to bed and move on,” said the Wales captain.

“There’s a lot more rugby to be played this year and we’ll certainly come back stronger from it.

“We’ve got to get over the emotion of this week as quick as we can.

“We have to make sure when we come back to the big arena next time we are a bit more accurate, a bit more clinical and do the simple things right.

“It was the biggest game of our club careers for a lot of us, but as individuals and units we made too many errors that you can’t afford to make at this level and Sarries capitalised on our mistakes.

“They did their homework on us and we came off second best.

“We were scratching our heads at times. That’s what the big match does to people sometimes and I’m sure we will learn from it.

“There were 22 bitterly disappointed guys in our dressing room. We’ll have to go back to the drawing board ready for next week.”

It was left to an exultant Saracens fan to sum up the size of his unfancied team’s achievement when he declared: “We’ve just beaten Wales.”

Well, thank goodness Wales didn’t play like this during the Six Nations or they wouldn’t have had a sniff of the Grand Slam.

The Ospreys made a catalogue of errors, spilling crucial balls and throwing a series of wayward passes, while their decision-making was extremely poor at times.

In a dramatic turnaround from two weeks ago, they also struggled at the breakdown, where man of the match Richard Hill outplayed Marty Holah.

Despite this, they still had their chances, but just didn’t take them.

Two golden try-scoring opportunities were bombed in the first-half when first Sonny Parker and then Lee Byrne fumbled, while James Hook was guilty of show-boating just before the break when he tried to catch the ball behind his back in his own 22.

The young fly-half followed that up by slicing to touch and handing Sarries an attacking position which almost brought a try for Paul Gustard.

Trailing 6-3 at the interval, the Ospreys suffered the worst possible start to the second-half when they conceded a freak try within a minute.

When Neil de Kock’s clearing kick was touched in flight by Byrne, the hosts were put on side, enabling Adam Powell to send fellow sub Francisco Leonelli on a 60 metre run to the line.

The situation became even bleaker for the Ospreys when they lost Wales full-back Byrne to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on which allowed fly-half Glen Jackson to stretch the deficit to 16-8.

A try from replacement prop Paul James six minutes from time raised brief hope, but Jackson hammered the final nail into the coffin with a late drop goal.

As they head into the last-chance saloon at Twickers, the pressure is now really on the Ospreys and in particular coach Jones, who admits they were well below par yesterday.

“There are 100 ways to play rugby and perhaps the way we selected to do so wasn’t good enough,” he said.

“We just didn’t play as well as we can. There were a lot of uncharacteristic unforced errors from individuals.”

simon.thomas@mediawales.co.uk