OSPREYS: ‘I don’t feel vindicated’: Jones says Lions rotation helped win the derby, and Black Lion side will look different

Mark Jones says he doesn’t feel vindicated over his rotation in South Africa, but he believes fresh legs helped the Ospreys win at Rodney Parade.

The head coach made 12 changes for the trip to the Lions in Johannesburg, where his side lost 35-19.

Before the derby, he said he would “never make an apology” for giving those players their chance.

Friday’s 38-31 win over the Dragons was the Ospreys’ first of the season.

Jones said the travel made it a hard start to the season. “It’s a tough start travel-wise. That was the approach around South Africa. You can see tonight we needed every drop of energy we could get,” he said.

He stopped short of claiming he had been proved right. “I suppose I don’t feel vindicated, but I’m glad that we hadn’t hammered the same group of players for two rounds out there, and then asked them to come here again and actually try and get a foot on the line at the end, because it was nip and tuck, wasn’t it?”

‘We can’t ask the same group of players’ to go to Tbilisi

Jones will rotate again for the Challenge Cup opener against Black Lion in Georgia. “I’d like to think that a little bit of energy and freshness from some key people there may have helped us tonight, and it’ll be the same when we go to Tbilisi next week,” he said.

“We can’t ask the same group of players to go there. We’ll have a look at the bangs and bruises, and we’ll have a look at how we can line up against Black Lion, which will look different to what we tried to do tonight.”

Scrum-half Kieran Hardy and Marika Koroibete are already waiting on injury checks after the derby.

Fundamentals ‘one step further’ than in South Africa

Jones says the derby set a new bar. “I think we set a good standard tonight around the fundamentals of the game. We hadn’t seen that for long enough in South Africa, and we’ve seen bits of it,” he said.

“We’ve seen our set-piece in South Africa, we’ve seen good kicking in South Africa, moved the ball a couple of times in South Africa, but hadn’t seen it enough for long enough, and I think tonight we definitely went one step further there.”

He said his side were “more patient” and used penalties to skip the middle of the pitch. “We got a turnover, kicked down the line, and then saved all our energy for the most important area of the pitch,” he said.

Black Lion at the Avchala Stadium, then the Dragons at St Helen’s

The Ospreys open their EPCR Challenge Cup pool campaign against Black Lion at the Avchala Stadium in Tbilisi on Saturday, 17 October (1pm UK time).

The Dragons are back on 24 October for the Ospreys’ first game at the rebuilt St Helen’s, and Jones expects them to “come back to us smart”.

Author

Richard Bond

Swansea-based sports journalist.
Twitter: @RichBond00
Email: RichardBond@swanseabaynews.com