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Munster strike early before Sean O’Brien double downs Ospreys

By PA
Tom Ahern carries for Munster. Photo By Chris Fairweather/Sportsfile via Getty Images

Munster wing Sean O’Brien scored two tries to put a huge dent in Ospreys’ hopes of an end-of-season play-off spot with a 27-17 win.

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Errors from the hosts gifted Munster a healthy early lead and the home side never looked like clawing back that deficit.

Shane Daly and RG Snyman were also on the try-scoring sheet for the Irish side with Joey Carbery converting two and adding a penalty.

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Keelan Giles, Sam Parry and Alex Cuthbert scored tries for Ospreys, one of which Owen Williams converted.

It took only three minutes for the reigning champions to take the lead when full-back Mike Haley burst into the line allowing Daly to out-flank the cover defence and score.

Worse was soon to follow for Ospreys when a pass from Owen Williams was intercepted by O’Brien who handed off Giles on a 55-metre run to the line.

O’Brien repeated the dose, this time it was a pass from Keiran Williams which went astray, with the wing performing heroics to keep his kick ahead in play to secure the touchdown. Carbery converted from the touchline to give Munster a 19-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

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Despite the scoreline, Ospreys had the better of territory and possession in the first half-hour and they were rewarded when centres Keiran Williams and Evardi Boshoff combined effectively to create a try for Giles.

Munster immediately responded with a sustained period of pressure, with Justin Tipuric sin-binned for persistent team infringements but Ospreys held out to trail 19-5 at half-time.

After the restart, Tipuric returned with no damage done to the scoreboard and in time to see Parry force his way over from a line-out drive.

Ospreys were back in contention but their opponents soon extended their advantage when the giant Snyman used his power to force his way over for the bonus-point try.

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Carbery missed the conversion but was on target with a penalty to leave Ospreys with a mountain to climb.

Cuthbert had the final say with Ospreys’ third try and may have had another had he not pulled up with a hamstring problem but it still left his side with no points from the game.

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Tom 1 hour ago
England player ratings vs South Africa | 2024 Autumn Nations Series

That 2019 performance was literally the peak in attacking rugby under Eddie. If you thought that was underwhelming, the rest of it was garbage.


I totally get what you're saying and England don't need or have any God given right to the best coaches in the world... But I actually think the coaches we do have are quite poor and for the richest union in the world, that's not good enough. 


England are competitive for sure but with the talent pool up here and the funds available, we should be in the top 3. At the very least we should be winning six nations titles on a semi-regular basis. If Ireland can, England definitely should.


England's attack coach (Richard Wigglesworth) is Borthwick's mate from his playing days at Saracens, who he brought to Leicester with him when he became coach. Wigglesworth was a 9 who had no running or passing game, but was the best box kicker in the business. He has no credentials to be an attack coach and I've seen nothing to prove otherwise. Aside from Marcus Smith’s individual brilliance, our collective attack has looked very uninspiring.

 

England's defence coach (Joe El-Abd) is Borthwick's housemate from uni, who has never been employed as a defence coach before. He's doing the job part time while he's still the head coach of a team in the second division of French rugby who have an awful defensive record. England's defence has gone from being brutally efficient under Felix Jones to as leaky as a colander almost overnight.


If Borthwick brings in a new attack and defence coach then I'll absolutely get behind him but his current coaches seem to be the product of nepotism. He's brought in people he's comfortable with because he lacks confidence as an international head coach and they aren't good enough for international rugby.


England are competitive because they do some things really well, mostly they front up physically, make a lot of big hits, have a solid kicking game, a good lineout, good maul, Marcus Smith and some solid forwards. A lot of what we do well I would ascribe to Borthwick personally. I don't think he's a bad coach, I think he lacks imagination and is overly risk averse. He needs coaches who will bring a point of difference.


I guess my point is, yes England are competitive, but we’re not aiming for competitive and I honestly don't believe this coaching setup has what it takes to make us any better than competitive.


On the plus side it looks like we have an amazing crop of young players coming through. Some of them who won the u20 world cup played for England A against Australia A on the weekend and looked incredible... Check out the highlights on youtube.

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