Jackman pays for resting big names
GRENOBLE’S Irish coach Bernard Jackman admitted his team’s thrashing by the Ospreys was “embarrassing” as the Welsh region ran in 11 tries at the Liberty Stadium.
The French outfit had been hammered 59-7 in the return fixture last weekend, but this result was even worse as Steve Tandy’s men dominated a one-sided encounter.
Scott Baldwin, Dan Evans and Hanno Dirksen all scored a brace of tries and Wales fly-half Dan Biggar added a total of 21 points in a result which called into question Grenoble’s place in Europe’s second tier competition.
The Top 14 side are without a win in the Challenge Cup to date, and Jackman said his team had bigger fish to fry than this meeting in south Wales.
“I’m very disappointed. We were very poor last week and we’ve got a lot of injuries but it’s always embarrassing to lose with a score like that,” Jackman told The Rugby Paper.
“We’ve got some massive league games coming up and left a lot of our firstchoice players at home. It was a chance for our younger players to experience what it’s like at the top level and in that regard the Challenge Cup has value for us.
“But it’s so difficult for us to balance the Top 14 and Europe. The league is our priority because if we’re relegated we’ll go out of business. This block has been challenging but hopefully it will improve us in the long run.”
The Ospreys are unbeaten in Pool 4 and look one of the best bets to win the competition. But they were never given a challenge in this encounter, despite Gilles Bosch giving Grenoble an early 3-0 lead.
Mathias Marie’s yellow card for a high tackle on Brendon Leonard didn’t help, as the home side went into the break 33-3 ahead.
Olly Cracknell and Ashley Beck scored the first two tries and Bald- win’s brace plus one from Evans, completed things before the break.
The one-way traffic continued after half time, with Leonard, Biggar and Scott Otten all crossing. Evans completed his brace too while Dirksen – on his first appearance of the season – scored two himself after coming off the bench.
Dirksen has struggled with his recovery from a serious knee injury, but his efforts were certainly the most popular of the day. The Welsh-qualified speedster collected a Biggar cross-kick for his first and finished off the scoring in the 78th minute.
Dead-eye Biggar booted eight conversions in total with rival Sam Davies, playing at full-back today, named man of the match. The new Wales cap impressed wearing the No15 jersey while Cracknell was an all-action figure in the back row.
“It was still a hit out for us and whatever opposition is there you have to put it away,” said Ospreys head coach Tandy.
“I thought we were a bit scrappy in the first 20 but once we scored some tries we built on that and kept the accelerator down. I think the squad is in a pretty good place.
“We’ve got some massive games coming up with the Christmas derbies and we have been able to rest some of our senior players and give others a chance. It’s an exciting period ahead.”