The Ospreys U18s return to action this evening when they welcome Cardiff U18s to Aberavon RFC for round 1 of the WRU Regional Age-Grade Championship, K.O 7:30pm.
Head Coach of the side, Chris Davies, gave us his views ahead of the block of fixtures:
“As a group, we’re looking forward to kicking things off. When Covid first hit back in 2020 I was heading up the U16s programme but because of the pandemic we didn’t get the chance to work with those boys. But now they're back and involved with the U18s side so it’s great for us as coaches to work with them and for them to have the opportunity to represent the Ospreys region in the 18s programme.
“These boys have unfortunately not had the experience the usual U18s programme would’ve had pre-pandemic. During the two-year programme they’d usually play around 20 games but this year it’s just the four, but we’re fortunate that we’ll have the opportunity to see these boys out on the field and see them play.”
“From a rugby perspective, we believe we’ve selected the best players in the region at an U18s level. The next step is to see them out there together and blossoming as a group on the pitch. We want to see them increase their decision-making and problem-solving skills and see how they transition those from a training setting to in a game.
“We don’t talk about winning, we assume that no matter what jersey you put on you want to win. It’s a case of working on what we’re trying to achieve as a team, so we have our mini goals and processes so we’ll monitor ourselves against those.
“It’s exciting to see what will happen, identify where players are on their journey’s and see them out there together on the field. We expect to see a lot of energy in attack, creating lots of turnovers in defence and seeing if the boys can react to the chaotic game of rugby.”
Watch the game live on the Ospreys Facebook page, courtesy of S4C Chwaraeon this evening.