Ospreys wickedly troll Cardiff with advert over Anscombe's summer switch

Ospreys have been good at diversionary tactics of late. Look at what happened at their media conference last week three days after Allen Clarke was reportedly relieved of head coach duties.

Chairman Rob Davies declared how a British and Irish League will be set up by 2022 – an excellent way of moving an awkward conversation about Clarke onto something very different. 

They have now been at it again this week.

Rather than fully focusing all their chatter on this Saturday evening’s visit of Racing to Swansea for a tie in a European tournament that Ospreys are already out of the running for due to heavy defeats by Munster and Saracens, they have been busy trolling their Welsh rivals, Cardiff. 

The two regional clubs are due to meet at the Liberty Stadium on the Saturday evening before Christmas – December 21 – and Ospreys have been reminding the Blues how Gareth Anscombe, Wales’ 2019 Grand Slam out-half, switched from Cardiff to Swansea during the off-season.

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Anscombe remains unavailable following the World Cup-ruining injury he suffered in a warm-up match versus England at Twickenham.

Nonetheless, Ospreys have boldly rented an electronic advertising board outside Cardiff Arms Park featuring a picture of the out-half and the tagline “Ospreylian and proud”. 

We’ve listened to the feedback regarding the billboard advertising the @cardiff_blues match, so we have amended the graphic accordingly. Hapus? ??

Earlybird price ends at midnight ?
?https://t.co/7JrwXwToNg#ItsInOurDNA#OurBloodIsBlack pic.twitter.com/6b4dpT9cFs

— Ospreys (@ospreys) December 6, 2019

It apparently didn’t go down well with the Blues, who seemingly complained to the media company responsible for the advertising space. 

However, that crib only emboldened the Ospreys to further stir the pot as they took to Twitter and posted an image of Bradley Davies, another player who has swopped Welsh clubs. 

"My boy was playing under-11s rugby and we could barely get nine or ten players to come out and play whereas with football they were scratching two sides together." @ShaneWilliams11 talks regional rugby decline with @heagneyl ???https://t.co/opEhls2mH2

— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) December 1, 2019

“He’s also Ospreylian and proud” was the accompanying tagline to a tweet that is sure to ensure a spicy pre-Christmas atmosphere to one of the few fixtures that draws a bumper five-figure crowd to the Liberty. 

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