Cardiff produced a remarkable defensive display to nil Ospreys at St Helen’s, winning 26-0 in Swansea.<\/p>\n
Two tries from Tom Bowen, as well as scores from Josh Adams and Tom Howe, sealed a bonus point victory for Corniel van Zyl’s side in this Welsh derby. However, it was their red-zone defence that really shone through – as the Ospreys were kept off the scoresheet for the first time in over two years.<\/p>\n
Despite a number of 22 entries, Mark Jones’ side were unable to find a way back into the match, having been stunned by three first-half tries.<\/p>\n
The result saw Cardiff leapfrog the Ospreys, moving into the top eight of the United Rugby Championship.<\/p>\n
After last week’s win against the Dragons, the Ospreys would have been hoping to keep the victories coming at their new home.<\/p>\n
But, on a night when fans turned up in Halloween costumes, it was a frightful first-half for the hosts.<\/p>\n
Cardiff dominated the breakdown throughout the opening 40 minutes, with Wales U20s duo Steff Emanuel and Bowen running riot.<\/p>\n
Emanuel, in particular, looked the part – with the centre involved in all three first-half scores.<\/p>\n
The first saw him loop a pass out wide for Bowen to dot down.<\/p>\n
Ospreys tried to hit back, turning to their reliable driving maul – only for Cardiff to hold them up twice in quick succession.<\/p>\n
Cardiff then doubled their lead, with Bowen racing away for his second after Emanuel’s pull-back pass to Jarrod Evans had created the space on first phase for the wing to get around Owen Watkin.<\/p>\n
Emanuel wasn’t done there, hitting a hard line off a lineout before getting to his feet to dab a delicate grubber through for Adams – released from the Wales squad for this match in order to get much-needed minutes – to score.<\/p>\n
Down by 19 points, the Ospreys threw everything at Cardiff in the second-half – with co-captain Sam Parry held up over the line.<\/p>\n
The Blue and Blacks did occasionally ride their luck, with repeat penalties in their own red-zone leading to a warning.<\/p>\n
But ultimately, opportunities came and went near the Cardiff line for the Ospreys without the scorers being troubled.<\/p>\n
However, when Cardiff got their chance 10 minutes from time, they didn’t waste it. The highly-rated Howe was on hand at the back of the maul to go over for the bonus point try, capping a fine derby performance by Cardiff.<\/p>\n
Ospreys: Iestyn Hopkins; Luke Morgan, Owen Watkin (co-capt), Keiran Williams, Keelan Giles; Harri Wilde, Luke Davies; Steffan Thomas, Sam Parry (co-capt), Tom Botha, James Ratti, Ryan Smith, Liam Wright, Ross Moriarty, Morgan Morris.<\/p>\n
Replacements: Efan Daniel, Cameron Jones, Ben Warren, Huw Sutton, Morgan Morse, Harri Williams, Steff Jac Jones, Evardi Boshoff.<\/p>\n
Cardiff: Matty Young; Josh Adams, Le Roux Malan, Steff Emanuel, Tom Bowen; Jarrod Evans, Johan Mulder; Danny Southworth, Dafydd Hughes, Keiron Assiratti, Josh McNally (capt), Rory Thornton, Semisi Paea, Dan Thomas, Alun Lawrence.<\/p>\n
Replacements: Tom Howe, Scott Sio, Javan Sebastian, Tom Manz, Lucas de la Rua, Aled Davies, Callum Sheedy, Osian Darwin-Lewis.<\/p>\n
See how the match unfolded below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardiff produced a remarkable defensive display to nil Ospreys at St Helen’s, winning 26-0 in Swansea. Two tries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[10579,26771,5903,101,56,54,16296,55],"class_list":["post-820568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-cardiff-rugby","tag-ospreys","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-rugby-championship","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820568","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=820568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}