The Dragons had come to frustrate and were successful in their attempts for the first half an hour taking a surprise 6-0 lead through the boot of former Wales under-20 fly-half Will Reed.
The game though would swing on two yellow cards for the visitors. Both Aaron Wainwright and Dane Blacker were sent to the sin bin just before the break with the home side capitalising with three tries in a 15-minute period that changed the complexion of the contest.
A double from Dewi Lake and scores from both Reuben Morgan-Williams would take the fire out of the Dragons to inflict the damage on the scoreline, before Keiran Williams wrapped up the bonus point victory for the home side.
Reed’s score threatened a comeback, but it proved to be a false dawn as the Ospreys would hold firm to move to within four points of the play-off placings going into Judgement Day to face Cardiff in a fortnight’s time.
“You can’t get more than five, so we are very happy with that from an outcome point-of-view,” said Booth post-match.
“To get four tries I knew we were going to have to suffer a little bit on the energy front.
“We made a conscious strategic decision that we would keep ball in hand more because we thought that it would pay more dividends if they had to defend for long periods.
“Like any performance, there are always things that we can get better at. I thought we were a little sloppy in a couple of areas in parts of the game.
“Against the very best, like in the Stormers game, people will penalise you and we are trying to benchmark ourselves against the best.
“We need to look up rather than down though and see what it takes to be the team we want to be. There are still areas to improve but five points is five points.
“The set-piece was dominant which is always great for us. We scored some nice tries some of which were off the training park so I’m happy.
“If we don’t [make the play-offs], it won’t be because of what has happened in the last two weeks.
“If we don’t get what we want it will be from what has happened previously. The key moments that we need to be better at and the moments where we let a point here and there go, it is a tight league.”
[Lead image: Ospreys Rugby]
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