Mighty Morgan at the treble as Ospreys stroll

ALUN Wyn Jones racked up a record 233rd appearance for the Ospreys but he was overshadowed by Luke Morgan during a regulation win over Zebre at the Liberty Stadium.

Left-wing Morgan, who made his Wales debut against Scotland during the autumn Test series, raced to a sizzling hat-trick of tries.

Morgan produced a brilliant finish for his first, went over on the overlap for his second and chased furiously for his third.

Thirty-three-year-old lock and Wales captain Jones moved past the mark of prop Paul James following 14 seasons in the boiler-house.

Despite his exertions for Wales during their historic autumn clean sweep, Jones was at the fore for the Ospreys.

Nevertheless, they made heavy weather of it with the bonus-point fourth try not coming until the 69th minute.

However, the victory was enough for them to overtake Connacht and climb into third in Conference A of the Guinness PRO14. They are six points behind second-placed Munster, who crushed Edinburgh 44-14 in Cork.

The Ospreys lacked accuracy with their passing and bombed a number of try-scoring opportunities with television match official Ian Davies advising South African referee JD Cwengile to chalk off three scores after reviewing footage.

Zebre outside-half Francois Brummer was wide with a penalty from 44m in the second minute but they never threatened to score afterwards.

The Ospreys bombed their first opportunity in the 17th minute with full-back Dan Evans passing slightly behind Morgan. He had to reach back but couldn’t hang on to the ball.

If the pass had been accurate a try would have been a formality with the Ospreys having created the overlap.

Another chance went begging a few minutes later following clever inter-play between centre Owen Watkin and skipper Justin Tipuric. It looked like they had set up George North, who had come off the rightwing, but he couldn’t keep his feet and was halted by the cover.

The pressure was bound to tell and it did when Zebre crumbled at a scrum near their line to concede a penalty try.

They are worth seven points these days with there being no conversion required.

Zebre attempted to disrupt the fluency of the Ospreys by delegating a defender to rush at Sam Davies and hustle him into mistakes.

But there wasn’t any stopping the Ospreys after they rumbled forward and in-field from a line-out before moving the ball wide.

Long passes from Davies and centre Scott Williams gave Morgan a chink of light on the outside and he managed to stay in play and squeeze in at the corner as Paula Balekana came in with the tackle for a spectacular try.

Davies was wide with the conversion but put over a penalty to make it 15-0 at the end of a low-key first half.

Ceciliani was sin-binned for stupidly coming illegally around the side of a ruck. Zebre hadn’t offered much apart from the tenacity of their tackling.

Jones, Morgan and scrumhalf Aled Davies were denied tries by the TMO and the breakthrough finally came when hooker Scott Baldwn found Davies, who flung a long pass for Morgan to cross unopposed.

Davies converted that and Morgan’s third, which the No.10 had created with a beautiful cross-kick.

Ospreys got a fifth try through replacement hooker Scott Otten with flanker Olly Cracknell crossing for their sixth, James Hook converting both.

Tries: pen try, Morgan (3), S Otten, O Cracknell; cons: S Davies J Hook (2); pen: S Davies.

Ospreys:

(2),