Match-winner Dan Biggar refused to get carried away after a fourth consecutive win for on Friday night as he acknowledged that the Ospreys will need to raise their game considerably over the coming weeks and months if they hope to remain in contention for silverware this season.
Biggar scored all 16 of the Ospreys points in a one-point win over bottom club Zebre at the Liberty Stadium, a victory that made in nine wins in 10 RaboDirect PRO12 matches, but after his team had battled to the narrowest of successes he was in a downbeat mood when he spoke to the press.
“It was nowhere near good enough” admitted Biggar.
“We were nowhere near what we’ve been the last three or four weeks and we can only apologise for the performance we put on. The coaching staff have put a lot of work in with us and we let them down over the 80 minutes.
“Credit to Zebre, I thought they played very, very well, were very competitive at the rucks and we just didn’t deal with it. If you don’t deal with the ruck area in this game, in this day and age, it’s an uphill battle.
“We didn’t help ourselves either with silly knock-on’s, just going away from our pattern a little bit, but they really did come hard at the ruck area and caused us a lot of problems. Leicester will do exactly the same next week so we’re in for a hard week’s training and we can’t complain about it.
“At the end of the day we’ve won a game. We’re happy with the result all in all, after that performance, but we know that we’re going to have to play an awful lot better, not just next week but the rest of the season if we’re going to finish in the top four places.
“We’ve done our bit, just about, the top four is where we need to be and hopefully now we can stay here. We’ve had a good Christmas all in all. We’re obviously disappointed with the way we played tonight but three wins in nine days is good return.”