After the Ospreys secured their first PRO12 try bonus point of the season on their way to a comprehensive win over Treviso at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday night, skipper Alun Wyn Jones said that the five pointer has come at the right time for a team in hot pursuit of a top two finish.
Speaking at the post-match press conference, Jones said:
“It’s probably the best time of the season to start getting them, it’s so tight up the top there. We were aware that there were a few teams ahead of us after last night on 55 or 56 points, so the bonus point puts us just a little bit ahead of them so it’s good that we’re going in the right direction at this time of the season.
“We’re conscious we’ve got two derbies coming up, followed by a difficult trip to Aironi, so it’s done us good to get this bonus point win and the confidence we can take from it moving forward. We know what we want to achieve, which is to get into the play-offs again for the third year, but we are conscious that there are a few hurdles in front of us still so we can’t take anything for granted yet, we need to continue working hard and look to improve certain aspects of our game before we go to Cardiff.”
Since the Ospreys’ Welsh internationals returned to the region after their Grand Slam success, the region has picked up two impressive wins to kick-start their play-off hops after two straight defeats, but Jones insists that they are were they are in the table because of the season-long efforts of the wider squad:
“It always helps when you’re coming back in off the back of a positive international campaign, but I think it’s testament to the boys that haven’t been away throughout the World Cup and Six Nations that we are where we are in the table tonight. They’ve worked hard and it’s been a complete team effort this year.
“The boys who don’t go away have to carry the can, they put a lot of work in and what they’ve done means it’s easy for those of us coming back to slot in because they’ve been performing well in those periods and we’ve just got to carry on from there.”