Powerful Leinster see off Ospreys to maintain impressive PRO14 start

Leinster maintained their unbeaten start to the Guinness PRO14 season with a convincing 26-7 victory over Ospreys at the Liberty Stadium.

Tries from James Tracy, Dave Kearney, Peter Dooley and Scott Penny earned the reigning champions a fifth straight bonus point win, with Harry Byrne adding three conversions.

Depleted Ospreys could not back up their impressive win over Glasgow in their last home fixture and after a lively start succumbed to the power of the Irish pack.

FULL DOC: Game Day

FULL DOC: Game Day

An early penalty try was their sole reward, with their failure to take advantage of a sin-binning for Penny proving costly.

Ospreys were first to threaten the try-line when Will Griffiths burst through a hole in the visitors’ defence. However, on reaching the opposition 22, the flanker elected to go it alone before being hauled down and the opportunity was lost.

The Welsh region continued to dominate the early exchanges and were rewarded with a penalty try when a driving line-out was collapsed by Leinster flanker Penny, who was shown a yellow card.

But the 14 men drew level when Tracy finished off a driving line-out, with Byrne’s conversion making it 7-7 at the end of the first quarter.

Leinster took the lead for the first time when the hosts lost their third line-out in the opening half-hour, allowing Tracy to burst away and put the home defence on the back foot.

Powerful centre Rory O’Loughlin then carried on the offensive with a 40-metre run to create a try for Kearney.

Byrne converted but was then surprisingly off-target with a straightforward penalty attempt.

However, it mattered little as Leinster soon scored their third try when a powerful burst from Kearney set up a score for Penny.

Four minutes after the restart Cai Evans had a chance to bring Ospreys back in contention but his long distance penalty attempt was nowhere near.

Instead it was the visitors who picked up the next score.

Replacement prop Dooley finished off a succession of forward drives to crash over for the bonus point.

With the game won, Dooley was one of six substitutions made by Leinster in quick succession and this allowed spirited Ospreys to finish strongly, but they lacked the accuracy to make it count.