Loose head Paul James says it's a new experience for him after his two tries helped the Ospreys to a Boxing Day win over the Scarlets.
His brace of tries doubled his all-time tally for the region, his previous two coming in 136 games, and the Ospreys leading appearance maker told the press post-match that he enjoyed his afternoon’s efforts:
“It’s a great feeling,. It’s not something I’ve experienced as a professional before, but I’ll enjoy it for the afternoon before knuckling down ahead of the Blues game on New Year’s Day. The first try, I was just clearing up, doing my job. It bounced up into my arms and the gap opened up for me. I’ve been working on my speed this season, and I showed a little bit of that out on the wing for the second!
“We said at half time that we had to tighten things up to get the result, and that’s we did. It was a real team effort, it wasn’t about being fancy, it was about doing the right things on the right part of the pitch.
“The Ospreys fans were amazing today, they got right behind us, and were the only ones singing at the end of the game, so you can see what the win over the local rivals means to them. We’re just delighted to be able to come here and win for them. It was a difficult afternoon, all credit to the Scarlets, they are a good side and they really made us work hard for the win. But, we’ve got great team spirit here and we dug in well to make sure that we got what we came here for, particularly that long spell in the second half when they were on our line. To come away from that without giving away a try was a brilliant effort, and with Dan kicking the penalties when they came along, it was a crucial part of the game.
“We’ve had a massive December, and the next month is just as big for us. We’ve been improving game on game since Munster, but there’s still a lot for us to work on. We’ll have tomorrow off to get our bodies right, then we’ll be back in on Monday to watch the DVD. What we’ll do then is work on the areas where we didn’t do well today, to help us keep improving as we know that as a team we aren’t there yet, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. We’ll enjoy winning this one today, but we will keep on working to make sure we take it up another notch next Friday.”