Points shared at Liberty Stadium

Editor

It was all square in the Welsh derby between the Ospreys and Cardiff Blues on Saturday, with matters ending 21-21 at Liberty Stadium.

It was all square in the Welsh derby between the Ospreys and Cardiff Blues on Saturday, with matters ending 21-21 at Liberty Stadium.

Fly-halves Dan Biggar and Dan Parks kicked 18 and 21 points respectively in a scrappy and tense encounter which was dominated by the boot.
Centre James Hook scored the Ospreys other points, but it's an outcome that neither team will be pleased with as they battle for a play-off spot.
However, the hosts came out looking to avenge their surprise defeat at the hands of Edinburgh last week, and they opened up an early nine point lead from three Biggar penalties.
Parks responded with a drop-goal and then reduced the hosts' advantage further with another three points.
Bradley Davies was then sin-binned for Cardiff and Biggar kicked the resultant penalty.
The two sides then traded penalties to leave the score 15-9 to the home side at half-time.
Within the first minute of the second period Hook slotted a drop-goal of his own before Parks kicked his third penalty as Cardiff battled back.
After a frantic few minutes, back-row Jerry Collins was yellow carded and the Blues stand-off helped himself to another three points.
Biggar once again responded as the teams continued to struggle with referee Christophe Berdos' interpretations.
Just before the hour mark, the Ospreys were penalised at the breakdown and Parks duly converted the opportunity.
The home side had the stronger set-piece sending Cardiff back at a rate of knots, but it was ironically from a scrum turnover that Parks levelled the scores with a drop-goal, a result which does no good for either side.

The scorers:

For Ospreys:
Pen: Biggar 5
Drop: Biggar, Hook

For Cardiff Blues:
Pen: Parks 5
Drop: Parks 2

Ospreys: 15 Richard Fussell, 14 Tommy Bowe, 13 Sonny Parker, 12 James Hook, 11 Nikki Walker, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Rhys Webb, 8 Jerry Collins, 7 Justin Tipuric , 6 Ryan Jones, 5 Ian Evans, 4 Alun Wyn Jones (c), 3 Adam Jones, 2 Huw Bennett, 1 Paul James.
Replacements: 16 Richard Hibbard, 17 Ryan Bevington, 18 Cai Griffiths, 19 Ian Gough, 20 Jonathan Thomas, 21 Mike Phillips, 22 Andrew Bishop, 23 Lee Byrne.

Cardiff Blues: 15 Chris Czekaj, 14 Leigh Halfpenny, 13 Casey Laulala, 12 Jamie Roberts, 11 Tom James, 10 Dan Parks, 9 Richie Rees, 8 Xavier Rush, 7 Martyn Williams, 6 Andries Pretorius, 5 Paul Tito (c), 4 Bradley Davies, 3 Scott Andrews, 2 Gareth Williams, 1 Fau Filise.
Replacements: 16 Rhys Williams 17 Sam Hobbs 18 Nathan Trevett 19 Michael Paterson 20 Mamma Molitika 21 Lloyd Williams 22 Ceri Sweeney 23 Dafydd Hewitt

Referee: Christophe Berdos (FFR)