The Swansea-based region exceeded expectations in the last campaign, reaching the quarter-finals of both the United Rugby Championship and European Challenge Cup.
Unexpected triumphs both domestically and in Europe home and away particularly against South African heavyweights on their own patch raised eyebrows in a memorable season.
Booth’s mantra of ‘finding a way’ often channeling through to his group of talented players to raise their game at times when many had written off his side’s chances.
Booth will embark on his fifth and final season as Ospreys head coach this term and whilst the former Harlequins and London coach admits it will be difficult to progress his side further, he feels his squad will be stronger for their experiences this time around.
“Any campaign will be built on consistency,” said Booth. “That is the consistency of approach, squad, effort, and messaging and the want to do well with your group.
“They are very ambitious to continue the progress, but we appreciate there are a lot of good teams standing in the way of us doing that.
“We have to maintain top eight performances and standards and look up and not down.
“The one thing that will aid that is if we don’t have the injury list that we had last year. We still have a little bit of that coming into this year, but you always need a bit of luck.
“We are respectful of that, but our intent is to always improve so we will see how we go.
“We moved a step closer last year which was great, but the difficulty is trying to keep improving.
“Our biggest advantage is we have got consistency, through no choice of our own, but this young group has got better through the experience.”
In a testing opening run of fixtures, the Ospreys start away at Rodney Parade against the Dragons before Booth’s side welcome South African outfit Stormers to Bridgend’s Brewery Field.
October then will see two trips to Ireland to face Munster and Ulster, with the Springboks of last season’s URC runner-up Vodacom Bulls at the Swansea.com Stadium sandwiched in between.
“We have talked about this internally about being our Olympic block,” continued Booth. If we want to get to the medal ceremony this block is very important.
“We are not putting any pressure on ourselves, but we have recognised that situation.
“Going to the Dragons away has not been a great ground for us in the last couple of years.
“There is a common theme if you look at the games against the Dragons home and away. There is a discipline theme that runs right through it.
“There are a lot of cards, 13 in the games I’ve been involved in, and it normally favours the home team.
“We have spoken about our discipline a lot and that’s something you need to be mindful of going into a Welsh derby away from home, it plays a massive part.”
Releasing his starting lineup this afternoon to face the Dragons, Booth welcomes back lock Adam Beard after missing Wales’ summer tour of Australia with an ankle injury.
The Ospreys will be led by new captain Jac Morgan having replaced Justin Tipuric as captain over the summer, whilst there is a debut handed to former Scarlets wing Ryan Conbeer in the absence of Keelan Giles.
Booth is also without James Fender, Rhys Davies, Will Griff, Ben Warren, Kieran Hardy for the season opener.
Fellow acquisitions Steffan Thomas and Phil Cokanasiga are named amongst the replacements bench.
Ospreys XV to face Dragons:
Gareth Thomas, Dewi Lake, Tom Botha, James Ratti, Adam Beard, Jac Morgan (c), Justin Tipuric, Morgan Morris
Jack Walsh, Luke Morgan, Owen Watkin, Keiran Williams, Ryan Conbeer; Dan Edwards, Reuben Morgan-Williams;
Replacements:
Lewis Lloyd, Steffan Thomas, Math Iowerth-Scott, Huw Sutton, Harri Deaves, Luke Davies, Phil Cokanasiga, Max Nagy.
[Lead image: Ospreys Rugby]
