Attitude of the team and backing of the crowd pleases Head Coach Sean Holley as Ospreys make it two wins from two.
Addressing questions from the assembled media post-match at the Liberty Stadium, Holley spoke of his mixed emotions about the game, but he was in no doubt of the positives that the Ospreys will take from the contest.
“After the game you feel a lot of emotions” he said.
“Relief is one obviously, but there is frustration at some aspects of our performance. What I can say is we did try to play a lot of rugby tonight. We tried to play our rugby, showed some good moments.
“We’re delighted to get the win, and credit to the boys, they stuck at it right to the end. Edinburgh made it very difficult for us. I don’t know if I’ll get to sleep tonight with the sound of whistling in my ear but we’re pleased with the outcome in the end.
“We did create a lot of line breaks and a lot of opportunities to score that we didn’t finish off. To take the positives out of it, this group of boys showed a lot of resolve to come back at the end, we’ve got the win and we’re top of the league after two games.
“To Edinburgh’s credit they deprived us of any quick ball, they challenged us hard there and we found it hard to recycle. There were some interpretations that we’ll have to look at that we’ll probably be a bit disappointed at but that’s for us to get our house in order. Sides will come to the Liberty to stop us playing.
“We got frustrated, penalised, and it made for a tense finish. If you struggle with interpretations then you have to look at it and put it right for next week. We prevailed in the end though, even if perhaps we’re a little disappointed that we didn’t take some gilt edged chances having made the line break. We could have made the finish a little bit easier for ourselves, but that’s the nature of this league.
“We never settle for a draw. I remember us scoring a try against Edinburgh in Meadowbank in 2003, the 89th minute, Richie Pugh. I’ll never forget it, and ever since then, we’ve never given up. Likewise, at 19 all I was a little bit worried we were going to concede because Edinburgh have been here twice and scored in the last play of the game. It doesn’t make for a good blood pressure chart but that’s the nature of professional rugby.
“We said to the players in there that we’ll look at ourselves, we’ll keep the momentum going and improve for next week. There were lots of good things. The endeavour, and the resolve at the end to score right at the death shows what we are trying to build with this group of players, which is really satisfying.
“The other satisfying thing for me is the reaction of the crowd tonight, I thought they were outstanding. They got right behind the players, they recognised the difficulty we were having in the encounter and right to the death they supported us. I think that makes a difference. They were outstanding tonight and the players responded to it.
“We did get bogged down at times but we didn’t let it get to us. As I said, we showed good determination to get the winner at the end despite everything
“But that’s two homes wins, which puts us in a good position at this early stage with plenty to still work on. We can get much better than we’ve seen tonight. We’ll continue to play as positively as we can, and we can go to Treviso with a lot of heart.”