Peter Jackson: Magnificent Ospreys put life back into Wales

After the Grand Slam, the Grand Slump as befitting a nation where extreme mood swings tend to be the norm. After five straight wins and their anointment as Six Nations winners, the undisputed champions of Europe skidded into seven straight defeats and tumbled down into the third tier of the IRB rankings. Nobody does doom and gloom better than the Welsh.
The Welsh Rugby Union joined in over the festive period, their chief executive Roger Lewis speculating about one of the four fully professional regional teams paying the ultimate price for failing to make ends meet.
And then along came the Ospreys for the second week in a row to make a mockery of all the WRU talk about the WRU taking greater control over the regions.
There is no love lost between the Ospreys and the Union, as pointed out in these columns only a few weeks ago and underlined again today with startling new claims from the region’s major investor, Rob Davies, of the Union’s attempt to ‘destroy’ a team who provided almost the entire 2005 Wales Grand Slam XV.  The WRU responded with a deafening silence.
How odd given that of the four regions, only the Ospreys have embraced the concept, winning a record four Celtic League titles during the ten seasons since their birth following the shotgun marriage between the all-whites of Swansea and the all blacks of Neath.
In fighting their own corner, they have never been afraid to rock the boat. At a time when just about everyone else was denouncing the four regions for their failure to make any impact on the European Cup, how typical that the Ospreys should respond by knocking the stuffing out of Toulouse.
And they bucked the trend again this week, rescuing the reputation of the game in Wales after the Blues and Scarlets contrived to produce a match so dire that the losing home club ought to have issued a public apology to those who had been given less than value for money.
On Boxing Day, the Ospreys provided a reassuring reminder that the national team does not operate a monopoly when it comes to staging an occasion.
An old-fashioned derby against the neighbours in Scarlet from the other side of the Loughor generated an old-fashioned crowd.
A few short of 20,000 flooded into the Liberty Stadium, almost as many as had watched Manchester United at the same venue the previous Sunday and very nearly double the attendance at the Arms Park for the Blues-Dragons earlier in the day.
As a demonstration of faith in which the visiting fans played a full part, it was powerful stuff.
The Ospreys, what’s more, achieved their decisive win on the strength of a largely home-grown team with two notable exceptions – the excellent scrum half, the Samoan Kahn Fotuali’I, and the evergreen Cornish warrior, the Welsh-qualified Joe Bearman, at No.8.
Lewis is reported as paying tribute to the Scarlets academy under Gareth Jenkins, the same Gareth Jenkins whom he unceremoniously sacked as national coach before the team had time to get home from the 2007 World Cup.
He has not been reported as paying tribute to the Ospreys who on current form are not only the one Welsh team yet to be counted out of Europe but the one most likely to reach the Pro 12 play-offs.
And they have done so despite injury having taken its inevitably savage toll.   While Wales shrug off their autumn whitewash by using a heavy casualty list as a convenient excuse when they ought to be looking for deeper issues, the Ospreys have made the best of what was left and got on with the job.
At various times last month, six of their internationals were put out of action in the national cause.
Boxing Day at the Liberty brought Welsh rugby‘s Mark Twain moment – that reports of the death of the regional game have been somewhat exaggerated. The Ospreys are alive and kicking.