{"id":536008,"date":"2026-04-17T13:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/536008\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:20:08","slug":"united-rugby-championship-ospreys-aim-to-pull-off-mission-impossible-by-reaching-play-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/536008\/","title":{"rendered":"United Rugby Championship: Ospreys aim to pull off mission impossible by reaching play-offs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ospreys will be led by Wales captain Jac Morgan, while Ross Moriarty returns on the replacements bench after serving his suspension.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Head coach JP Pietersen has given 18-year-old Zekhethelo Siyaya a first start at full-back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Double South African winning captain Siya Kolisi has been named in the squad for the short tour but will not feature in Bridgend, while Springboks lock Eben Etzebeth is set to miss the rest of the season because of a hip problem. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ospreys: Hopkins; L Morgan, Bishoff, Watkin, Kasende; Edwards, Hardy; G Thomas, Parry, Botha, Sutton, R Smith, Ratti, J Morgan (capt), Morris.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Replacements: Daniel, Phillips, Warren, Moriarty, Deaves, Morgan-Williams, P Cokanasiga, Walsh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sharks: Siyaya; E van der Merwe, Malan, Esterhuizen (capt), Hooker; J Smith, Hendrikse; Ganyane, Mbatha, Jacobs, Jenkins, van Heerden, Buthelezi, V Tshituka, M Tshituka, <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Replacements: Swart, Nche, Koch, Rahl, Hatton, Davids, Masuku, Julius.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Referee: Mike Adamson (Scotland)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Assistant referees: Craig Evans (Wales), Marcus Caudle (WRU).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">TMO: Andrew McMenemy (SRU).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ospreys will be led by Wales captain Jac Morgan, while Ross Moriarty returns on the replacements bench after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-536008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}