Ospreys slapped with £5,000 fine as problems mount

THE Ospreys’ troubled preparations for Sunday’s Heineken Cup tie at Munster took a new twist yesterday after they were hit with yet another fine by rugby officials.

As though fielding 16 men against Leicester or calling off their fixture at Ulster was not enough, the Welsh club cemented their position as the bad-boys of European rugby with another administrative blunder.

The troubled region must pay £5,000 to Heineken Cup bosses for the late return of unsold tickets for last season’s quarter-final against Biarritz Olympique.

European Rugby Cup bosses ordered the Ospreys to pay compensation after failing to return 3,000 ticket from their allocation for the tie at San Sebastien’s Estadio Anoeta in time to be re-sold.

An ERC statement said: “Judge Blackett accepted that the Ospreys had not acted in a dishonest or intentionally obstructive manner, but he did consider that the failure to return almost 3,000 tickets within the required time period represented a clear breach of the Commercial Rules.”

Remarkably it is the third time this year the Swansea-based club has been fined, taking their total pay-outs to a staggering £125,000 and confirming their reputation as Europe’s ‘enfant terrible’.

They were fined €25,000 by the ERC in January over their 16-man blunder against Leicester in the same competition.

Magners League officials then imposed a record £100,000 and docked four points in September for calling off their fixture against Ulster.

Add to that the loss of Gavin Henson to Saracens, the announced departure of James Hook next summer and the impending loss of Lee Byrne to France, and it caps a chaotic and turbulent 12 months at the Liberty Stadium.

The latest sanction came on the same day Marty Holah, their experienced former All Black, was due to lodge an appeal against his two-week ban for foul-play in a desperate last-ditch attempt to face Munster in one, if not both, of their forthcoming back-to-back clashes.

Munster must be wondering what to expect next from Sunday’s opponents who spent yesterday running through their drills on the sand of Aberavon beach, due to their frozen training pitch and possibly in expectation of a heavy playing surface at Thomond Park. Whichever way you look at it, preparation has hardly been ideal.

The Ospreys players struggled to find their footing during their quarter-final annihilation in Limerick 19 months ago, though they played down the Thomond Park factor.

“Against teams like Munster, if you don’t perform and give them opportunities they will take them and we saw that on that day. They were clinical and we weren’t,” re-called prop Paul James.

“Apart from Munster being very strong at home, they have a great fan base out there. Once you arrive, you know you’re in Munster. There are flags everywhere, the crowd is buzzing and it’s just an experience to run out there.

“We don’t have a problem with that because a lot of our players have played in bigger arenas and bigger places and at the end of the day it’s just another game.”