After contributing 17 points during the 22-16 win over Gloucester at Kingsholm on Saturday, Dan Biggar says that the Ospreys can take a lot of positives from the performance as they look towards next weekend's Magners League opener against Connacht
The 19 year-old said:
“It was very tough, we expected nothing less, coming up here against a top Guinness Premiership side. We were up against it for long periods of the game, especially with the two yellow cards, but we showed a lot of character to dig in and score the two late tries and hang on in there. The fitness and strength work we’ve done over the summer is starting to show, and is really being put into play on the field.
“There was a mixture of boys on the field, there was enthusiasm and we wanted to score tries, and we managed to find the right mixture to close the game down fairly well at the end. At the end of the day we got the result, and we’ll take a ‘W’ up here any day.”
Biggar helped himself to two second half tries, the second of which led to calls of a forward pass from the Gloucester crowd, and Biggar accepts that they may have been correct:
“It probably was a forward pass in fairness, but we’ll take them. I thought a couple of decisions in the first half were a little bit harsh but they even themselves out over the course of 80 minutes. It was nice to cross over for a couple of tries and help the team achieve a very good win up here today.
“Two wins gives us a massive confidence boost ahead of next week. Last week’s game was about trying combinations and getting a fitness blast, but this week was all about winning, we’d have taken 3-0 at the start. It’ll give us plenty of confidence to come to a top side like Gloucester and come away with a win. We looked strong in the finishing stages.
“Sean and Johnno said to us before the game that if we want to make that shirt our own we’ve got to perform, and I think a lot of the guys performed today. I thought Jonathan Spratt and Gareth Owen who came on in the second half were very, very good. There were a lot of impressive performances today and we all gelled as a team.”
With two wins out of two in pre-season, attention now turns to the Magners League, and a testing trip to Galway next Friday for the opening game against Connacht, and Biggar believes that it will provide a real test of character for the Ospreys. He added:
“It’s going to be slightly different to the stadium and everything we’ve had today, but it presents its own challenge and if we are a couple of per cent below our best we’ll get turned over. We’ve got to respect that, front them up with forward power and hopefully we can finish things off behind. It’s going to be tough out there, it’s going to be windy and probably rainy so we’ll probably leave the forwards to get on with it and go for a cup of tea in the stands!”