With the Ospreys Premiership Select kicking off their British and Irish Cup this weekend, captain Will Jones was in a positive mood following their final team run at Llandarcy this morning.
Now in their third year of competing in this tournament, the Ospreys PS have been back in training in the build up to Saturday afternoon’s opening game against Munster A at St Helen’s, Swansea.
Skipper Jones said: “We’re feeling pretty positive, we’ve had a good week of training with four training sessions this week. We’ve been clearly focused on speed and this pretty young team has trained really hard. The mood is really positive in the squad.”
The 18-year old played two years above his age-grade, captaining the national team throughout this year’s U20 Six Nations and World Rugby U20 Championship in Georgia this summer. The former Ospreys U16’s and U18’s captain now takes the reigns of the Premiership Select side.
“Obviously it’s a great honour for me, with the likes of Rob McCusker in the team and Hugh Gustafson on the bench” he said.
“I’ve learnt a lot from them with them being captain last year, so it’s a good experience for me and a great learning curve. Going forward I’d personally like to develop my performance, I think it’s the perfect competition for it.”
The openside flanker featured in all of last season’s British and Irish cup games and featired for the senior Ospreys team against Bath back in August’s preseason campaign.
“As a team, we’re really just taking one game at a time. We really focused on our performances towards the end of the tournament last year and we picked up a good few wins especially the last game of the league against London Irish.”
The Premiership Select side came from being 24-7 behind to gain a well deserved 24-26 win against London Irish at the Madejski Stadium back in January, becoming the first team to beat the Championship winners that season.
Speaking about Saturday’s visitors to St Helen’s, he said: “Obviously we know Munster are a powerful pack. When you see their senior team they’re really direct and physical. But there’s no reason why we can’t cause an upset.”
Tickets are available from St Helen’s on the day only. Admission is £10, Concessions £8, Students and U16’s free, K.O 2:30pm.