Ospreys humble Gloucester

Ospreys dismissed Gloucester with brutal efficiency to move within two points of the Pool Two leaders in Saturday's Heineken Cup clash.

The Welshmen put in a massive performance to beat the visitors 32-15 in front a large crowd at a rain-swept Liberty Stadium.

Fly-half James Hook was in devastating form with the boot, scoring 22 points and missing just one kick from nine attempts.

It was Hook who opened the scoring with a penalty after five minutes. But minutes later it was Gavin Henson who showed great composure to set up the first try of the game.

Henson chased down his own up and under, waiting for the bounce before collecting and slipping two Gloucester defenders, being brought down just shortof the line.

The resulting ruck saw the ball whipped out to Shane Williams on the wing who crossed to score from five yards, with Hook adding the extras for 10-0.

Superb

Gloucester counter-attacked from the restart looking to cancel out Williams' score.

But, despite a couple of mistakes from the home side which saw them threatening the Osprey line, Gloucester were unable to make the breakthrough.

Hook was on target again on the 20-minute mark with a superb strike and, at 13-0, it looked like there was no stopping the Ospreys.

It was another six minutes before Gloucester could reply, their first points coming courtesy of the boot of fly-half Ryan Lamb.

But almost immediately Hook was there once again to cancel out the visitors points and take his tally to four from four and the score to 16-3.

The 22-year-old continued to be a thorn in Gloucester's side, adding three more from near the touchline after Peter Buxton was sin-binned five minutes before the break.

Ospreys started the second-half with a comfortable 19-3 lead, but Hook failed to extend it two minutes in as he sent a 37m effort wide of the posts for his first and only miss of the match.

Pressure

Replacement Rory Lawson sparked hopes of a Gloucester fightback towards the end of the third quarter when a pass from the line-out found him in space.

Lawson sold a sublime dummy, scampered through the gap and blazed his way to the line for the visitors' first try, converted by Chris Paterson.

A period of sustained pressure from Ospreys eventually paid off, after ill-discipline saw two Gloucester players, Luke Narraway and Olivier Azam, sin-binned within minutes of each other.

With three minutes to go, and camped firmly in the visitors half in search of the bonus point, Ospreys drove over from the line-out for Richard Hibbard to touch down and take the game out of reach of Gloucester.

With the score at 32-10 a minute into injury time there was still time, however, for Lamb to slide in for a consolation score after latching onto a lovely little dink through from Mike Tindall.

Just two points separate these two at the head of Pool 2 and after today's display the Welsh side must surely fancy themselves to top the group.