Leaders Leinster came into the match with a 100% record in the competition this season, winning all ten of their matches but a plucky performance from the Ospreys almost pulled off an unlikely upset.
It would be though a first Ospreys defeat under head coach Mark Jones since he took over in December.
Visiting skipper Luke McGrath opened the scoring early on as Leinster seemingly looked to follow normal service. However, Leo Cullen’s side would not have it all their own way as a stubborn Ospreys performance, led from the front by stand-in veteran captain Justin Tipuric would frustrate.
Fellow flanker and man-of-the-match Harri Deaves rewarded a spell of home pressure powering through for a try minutes before the break, before Leinster fly-half Charlie Tector wriggled free to restore the visitors eight-point advantage at the half-time interval.
Ospreys came flying out of the traps with hooker Ethan Lewis in the middle of a driving maul to get Ospreys back to within a score, before veteran France front-row Rabah Slimani crossed for Leinster to seemingly wrap up the result.
A late Cameron Jones effort set up a grandstand finish, and whilst Ospreys could not complete the comeback, they did bag a deserved losing bonus point.
Leinster remain top of the URC table, while Ospreys stay within a clustered pack of chasing teams for the play-offs two points behind eighth position in 11th place.
“When you play a top of the table team, you just want to be within a chance of winning,” said Jones after the match.
“Obviously, a three-point game and a couple of minutes to go, you always think you can [be victorious], unfortunately on this occasion we couldn’t.
“It was really down to our accuracy in the first half, that’s why we were left with a 15-7 margin at half-time, it was just a little bit too much to climb at the end.
“We have set a high standard and the boys drive to that; they expect it of themselves.
“There were lots of individual and exceptional performances, particularly from the guys in the scrum caps in the back-row, but collectively we weren’t quite as good as we have been.
“But as always the effort was never in question, it was just our accuracy had dropped off from where it has been in the last six weeks, and we fell a little short.
“Not many teams score three tries against Leinster though. Our challenge now is to go to Glasgow and go up against a very good side and see if we can do it on the road.”
