Player-coach Filo Tiatia was pleased to see his young makeshift Ospreys side record a hard-fought 21-17 over Leeds Carnegie.
Ospreys player-coach encouraged by young talent
Player-coach Filo Tiatia was delighted to see his young makeshift Ospreys side record a hard-fought 21-17 LV= Cup victory over Leeds Carnegie at the Liberty Stadium.
The Welsh region were without many of their established stars who were away on international duty and so included the likes of teenagers Hanno Dirksen and Tom Prydie.
They responded encouragingly to the challenge, though, and outscored their opponents three tries to two to prevent a whitewash in Pool One having lost all of their previous matches in the competition.
"I don't know if you can use the cliche game of two halves, but it was a game full of positives but also frustrating to watch," stated Tiatia.
"The positive we can take out of it is that it was a win, but we know there are plenty of things we can work on behind the scenes.
"The real positive is in terms of a lot of kids having their debuts. There were two starts: Hanno Dirksen, who went well, scored a try and popped up in the action a lot, and young Ben Breeze at hooker, and Ben John is still in the Under-18 system but came on on the wing before the end.
"So all in all it was exciting to see some young talent out there showing their wares and hopefully they will be involved (in the Magners League match against) Connacht later in the month.
"The luxury of this competition is that we can try different combinations with a lot of players away on international duty."
Key upbeat
Leeds coach Andy Key also looked at the positives despite seeing his charges come up short despite a late rally.
"It was one of those games where we have made unforced errors throughout the game, but in the end at 21-17 it could have been a game that we could have won," explained Key.
"But the important thing for us now is setting the platform going back into the Guinness Premiership.
"Things have gone well for us in some sense over the last four games (in the LV= Cup) going back into the Guinness.
"Our scrimmaging was really strong and that was proved with the penalty try, which was given rightly in our view.
"We will look back at the positives but we'll also look back and know we have to eliminate some of the errors in our game."
