Four-try Edinburgh continue gloom for Ospreys

Neath/Swansea Ospreys 16 Edinburgh Rugby 32

The Ospreys were pushed closer to the Heineken Cup exit door as four tries helped Edinburgh to a comfortable victory in appalling conditions at St Helen’s.

The Scottish side moved clear of the pack in Pool Two thanks to scores from Todd Blackadder, Craig Joiner, Chris Paterson and Hugo Southwell.

Scotland World Cup star Paterson also claimed three conversions and two penalties to finish with 17 points.

The victory for the Gunners comes hot on the heels of their triumph over Toulouse and leaves them well placed to strike for the quarter-finals.

But the Ospreys’ hopes are now hanging by a thread. They have home and away fixtures against Toulouse to follow and will need to improve hugely to stand any chance of improving their position at the bottom of the table.

For Edinburgh, man of the match Scott Murray was a towering presence in the line-outs and around the field, while Blackadder and Simon Taylor shone in the back row.

After an early exchange of penalties, New Zealander Blackadder claimed the opening try to reward a period of forward pressure from the visitors. The score stemmed from a line-out take from Taylor close to the Ospreys’ line. The inspirational Blackadder then spearheaded a superb rolling maul to break the home defence.

As heavy rain swept across the pitch, the Ospreys were unable to play their usual entertaining brand of rugby as passes went down and wrong options were taken. They also had problems winning their own ball at the line-out, with hooker Huw Bennett struggling to find his targets.

A second try for the visitors had to follow and it arrived on the stroke of half-time after more impressing handling in the wet. Mike Blair, Derrick Lee and Murray were all involved before Joiner chipped past the home defence and outpaced lock Luke Tait to touch down.

The Ospreys never gave up but could not establish a forward platform against well-drilled opponents.

Any chance the home side had was killed off in the third quarter by the touchdowns from Paterson and Southwell.

Scott Gibbs and Dave Tiueti crossed for late tries, but the Welsh region were completely outgunned in front of a disappointing crowd of 1,822. They have lost six games in a row and looked bereft of confidence in the face of repeated attacks by the Scots.