The Ospreys fell to a heavy 41-24 defeat to the Sharks in Durban in the opening round of the United Rugby Championship.<\/p>\n
Mark Jones’ side were put to the sword by a powerful Sharks outfit but they leave Durban with a losing bonus point.<\/p>\n
The Sharks scored five tries in total, with Nick Hatton, Manu Tshituka, Litelihle Bester and Luan Giliomee (twice) touching down, while Vusi Moyo and Siya Masuku kicked 16 points between them.<\/p>\n
Luke Morgan, Sam Parry, Liam Wright and Iestyn Hopkins scored the Ospreys’ tries while Lawson Creighton scored four points.<\/p>\n
The Sharks burst into an early 21-0 lead with some scintillating rugby before Morgan crossed out wide.<\/p>\n
Giliomee extended the Sharks’ lead before Parry touched down at the stroke of half-time to make it 28-14.<\/p>\n
Wright scored a try shortly after the interval to bring the Ospreys back into the game but the Sharks pack soon took control with Moyo kicking a couple of important penalties.<\/p>\n
Giliomee put the game beyond the Ospreys with a try out wide before Hopkins scored for the visitors to give them a losing bonus point.<\/p>\n
Sharks: Giliomee; Hartzenberg, Julius, Koster, Bester; Moyo, Jaden Hendrikse; Ganyane, Swart, Koch, Rahl, Landsberg, P Buthelezi, Tshituka, Hatton (capt)<\/p>\n
Replacements: Mnebele, Roelofse, Jacobs, Jenkins, Romao, van Zyl, Masuku, Siyaya.<\/p>\n
Ospreys: Hopkins: Rogers, Watkin (co-capt), Foketi, Morgan; Creighton, L Davies; S Thomas, Parry (co-captain), Botha, Ratti, R Davies, Wright, Moriarty, M Morris.<\/p>\n
Replacements: Daniel, G Thomas, Henry, R Smith, Deaves, Hardy, Wilde, Boshoff.<\/p>\n
Referee: Gianluca Gnecchi (Italy)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ospreys fell to a heavy 41-24 defeat to the Sharks in Durban in the opening round of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[26771,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-ospreys","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783436","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=783436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}