Saturday's game at Liberty Stadium was, by some distance, the Ospreys' best team performance of the season so far. A now-familiarly patchwork home team out-thought and out-fought a strong Munster outfit, in the pouring rain. As entertainment, it lacked something, but given what we've sat through so far this year, no-one was complaining. This was much, much better.
I had to say all that first, because here comes some angry criticism.
19-7 down with ten minutes to play, Munster, as everyone surely expected, staged a late rally and took control of the final stages. Unable to prevent this, the Ospreys "dug in" and defended, for the large part, with skill and courage. One irresistable drive gave Munster a try, but by that point the match was in injury time, and the hard-won delay seemed to have been decisive. With seconds to go, the Ospreys were awarded a penalty 45m out. Game Over - or should have been. Kick for goal, use up the remaining time - no? If you score, you deny the opposition a bonus point; miss, and you're still defending 100m of space for the few remaining seconds. There doesn't even seem to be a problem to solve here. The Ospreys, however, found one. A short but intense on-field conference ended in Dan Biggar kicking for a line-out. If the players were surprised to lose possession from the subsequent throw, they must have been the only ones in the stadium. Munster were gifted a last chance. Incomprehensibly, they kicked it away... Naturally, Ospreys fullback Gareth Owen made his first mistake of the night, and knocked on... Mercifully, the referee had seen enough ineptitude for one phase, and blew for no-side.
For all the due praise for a much improved spirit and application, the Ospreys' apparent fixation on prising defeat from the jaws of victory was incomprehensibly stupid. All that skill and effort risks being rendered futile if there is no tactical sense whatsoever. They got away with this one, but the problem doesn't seem to be going away.
