{"id":453043,"date":"2026-05-17T05:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T05:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453043\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T05:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T05:48:15","slug":"leinster-unleash-on-ospreys-to-seal-second-place-in-urc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/453043\/","title":{"rendered":"Leinster unleash on Ospreys to seal second place in URC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leinster secured second place in the BKT URC table with a facile 68-14 victory over Ospreys at Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

The Welsh outfit were already out of contention and Leo Cullen’s side raced into a 28-7 first-half lead.<\/p>\n

The hosts, for whom wing Tommy O’Brien was a late withdrawal, added another six tries after the break to overtake Stormers, who lost to Cardiff on Friday night.<\/p>\n

The defending champions scored 10 tries in total, including a hat-trick from Joe McCarthy.<\/p>\n

The home side made a strong start with two tries inside the opening seven minutes.<\/p>\n

\"16<\/p>\n

McCarthy barged over under the posts from close range before Max Deegan (above) went through following a drive from a line-out, and Harry Byrne successfully landed both conversions for a 14-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Leinster continued their momentum as flanker Josh van der Flier touched down after being picked out on the overlap by Jack Conan before Jimmy O’Brien then ran clear to secure a bonus-point try in the 23rd minute.<\/p>\n

Ospreys finally stemmed the flow just after the half-hour mark when Huw Sutton crashed over from Rhys Davies\u2019 offload, but the Irish province still took a comfortable 28-7 lead into half-time.<\/p>\n

Leinster then took the game away from the Ospreys with a ruthless second half. Garry Ringrose ran in, winger Jordan Larmour then chasing down a kick through before McCarthy powered across in the 56th minute.<\/p>\n

Larmour added another try just before the hour, running in from his own half, with McCarthy completing his hat-trick and James Lowe scoring from wide for his 69th Leinster try to tie the club record.<\/p>\n

Ospreys got a late scant consolation try from Dan Edwards.<\/p>\n

Attention now turns to next Saturday’s Champions Cup final where Leinster take on holders Bordeaux-Begles in Bilbao.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leinster secured second place in the BKT URC table with a facile 68-14 victory over Ospreys at Aviva…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-453043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}