{"id":446758,"date":"2026-05-17T22:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T22:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/446758\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T22:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T22:09:10","slug":"welsh-trio-finish-season-after-missing-out-on-urc-play-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/446758\/","title":{"rendered":"Welsh trio finish season after missing out on URC play-offs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A record 68-14 defeat<\/a> to Leinster was not the way Ospreys wanted to finish the season and send off Jac Morgan<\/a>, who leaves for Gloucester next season along with fellow Wales captain Dewi Lake.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scoreboard was ugly and I will try not to focus too much on that,\u201d said head coach Mark Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably one game too much for us this season and I don\u2019t want it to be the match we remember.”<\/p>\n

Ospreys’ league performance is almost identical to the previous campaign, matching the seven wins with one fewer league point but finishing one place higher.<\/p>\n

They were controversially knocked out of the Challenge Cup last 16 by Ulster <\/a>after a Kieran Hardy late score was ruled out for a forward pass.<\/p>\n

Ospreys managed to win the Welsh URC shield involving games between the quartet.<\/p>\n

The results have to be judged against the backdrop of a turbulent season when the Ospreys’ existence has been threatened following WRU plans to reduce the amount of professional sides to three.<\/p>\n

Ospreys have found themselves in the firing line, especially when it was announced in January<\/a>, that their owners Y11 Sport & Media were the preferred bidders to buy WRU-owned Cardiff.<\/p>\n

That caused major anxiety with the initial announcement stating Ospreys’ professional future was only guaranteed until the end of the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n

While Jones will be scrutinised this season for things like team selection in his first full season in charge, he has had to contend with other matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith everything that has gone on, I’ve learned an awful lot,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cA fair bit about myself, the coaching and playing group, backroom staff and our supporters.<\/p>\n

“It’s been an enlightening season around how certain people respond to scenarios. <\/p>\n

“I’ve learned people within our building are incredible, in terms of their character, work ethic and mindset to keep going through it all.”<\/p>\n

Jones says it is hard to express how significantly the organisation has been affected by the uncertainty.<\/p>\n

“There’s been times where you couldn’t have blamed anybody for taking it easy or having a lacklustre mindset,” said Jones.<\/p>\n

“They will have felt like there’s no point, especially with some news we’ve had during the season.<\/p>\n

“If I could change what’s happened this season I 100% would. Nobody should go through that. <\/p>\n

“But I wouldn’t change the people we’ve done it with. They have done an incredible job and given me a lot of strength when I’ve needed it.”<\/p>\n

The Y11 and WRU deal collapsed in April<\/a> with four professional sides continuing in Wales for the next two seasons. <\/p>\n

The WRU still plan to reduce to three and who survives in west Wales remains to be seen with further details expected in June.<\/p>\n

“I would encourage everybody to finalise things and show a clear vision for players, supporters and stakeholders,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we know what we’re working towards, people can get behind it. The problem has been the ambiguity hanging over everybody.”<\/p>\n

Ospreys leave their temporary Bridgend home of this season to move into a refurbished St Helen\u2019s ground in Swansea<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully we have less disruption next year with the off-field antics and more talk around performance on the pitch,” said Jones.<\/p>\n

Ospreys will bring in international signings and will need another fly-half option with Jack Walsh leaving<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A record 68-14 defeat to Leinster was not the way Ospreys wanted to finish the season and send…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-446758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}