\u201cWith any team that goes there [to Brewery Field], Ospreys are a tough team to play against, because it\u2019s one of those grounds where they make it very uncomfortable for you. So, for us, it\u2019s about trying to take our game that we play at Scotstoun on the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought we could do that the week before against Benetton, and we did for 40 minutes, but we just didn\u2019t get scoreboard pressure and the second half became a real dogfight. So, it\u2019s the same with going to Ospreys this weekend, I believe that we have a game that can do a lot of damage but you need to back it up, you need to be consistent and you need to stay on it for 80 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201c40 minutes is not enough to play a game and be out of sight, so it\u2019ll be important to start well, and hopefully with all those chances that we can create, we take something from that and create that pressure on the scoreboard.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a tough start to the season in South Africa, when they were competitive but came up short against Bulls in Pretoria and Stormers in Cape Town, Ospreys extended their winning run at Brewery Field to five matches on the bounce stretching with a 24-0 scoreline versus Zebre last weekend. Their last win there before that was against Edinburgh back in October 2024, with the proximity of the crowd to the touchline undoubtedly contributing to an lively atmosphere despite attendances consistently well south of the 5,000 mark. The official capacity is 8,000 (1,100 seated).<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Ospreys that\u2019s their home, so they\u2019re going to have that home team feel that they\u2019re going to be dogged, but for us it\u2019s just having that mindset that we can beat anyone on our day,\u201d said Carolan.\u00a0 \u201cSo, we\u2019ve got to show up and we\u2019ve got to overcome all the little obstacles that are thrown in our way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an old coach in football called Bill Beswick<\/strong> who used to be a psychologist with Man United back in the day, and he was a big believer in mindset. He believed that if you change how you think about it, [then] that changes how you feel about a situation, and depending on how you feel, that\u2019s where you get your energy from.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, when we go away from home, we need energy, we need to create energy either by what we\u2019re doing on the field or how we reward each other for good actions, but it\u2019s that energy that gives you performance, and performance leads to opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s how you think about these things, so when you go to a ground and maybe the dressing rooms are smaller than normal, maybe the pitch is grass as opposed to the synthetic surface we\u2019re used to, it\u2019s different. But you don\u2019t want to think about it too hard, you don\u2019t want to be saying \u2018all these things could go wrong\u2019. You need to be really clear about what you control and not be put off by the things you can\u2019t control.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know we\u2019ve got a game that can do damage, but it\u2019s just about being consistent and how we back that up, so the focus on ourselves is usually what it comes back to.\u201d<\/p>\n Another dimension to this game \u2013 and all games against Welsh opposition at the moment \u2013 is that the turbulent political and financial landscape in that proud rugby nation at the moment means that these players have nothing to lose, and in many ways are playing to justify their careers, which Carolan believes can have a galvanising rather than demoralising impact on the way they go about their business.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re fighting for their lives and I thought we saw that in the Dragons even last week, even though we beat them well, because they asked a lot of really good questions,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought they were a lot stickier than sometimes when we\u2019ve played them in the past, certainly in our place, and Osprey\u2019s will be no different.<\/p>\n \u201cThey went to South Africa in their first two games and they stuck in it. They played Stormers and Bulls down there and they were in the games right through, they never lay down and went away, so I don\u2019t expect anything different from them this weekend.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re a gritty team, they\u2019ve some quality players and, as I said, they\u2019re fighting for their lives and they want to make sure that whatever happens in Welsh Rugby, they\u2019re a team that people are going to back, and they\u2019re players that people are going to back.\u201d<\/p>\n Carolan also delivered a fairly positive medical update following last weekend\u2019s big 49-0 home win over Dragons.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a couple of HIAs, and Alex Craig<\/strong> is fine, he\u2019s passed everything, while Fin Richardson<\/strong> is still working through his protocols every day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cJack Dempse<\/strong>y\u2019s back in full training again [following a groin injury he suffered just over a fortnight ago], which is fantastic, and whether he features this weekend or against the Bulls next week, we\u2019ll see, but he\u2019s very close,<\/p>\n \u201cApart from that, it\u2019s just trying to manage the international players that we have and there\u2019s great competition within the squad so it\u2019s about taking the best team down there that we feel like can put a performance in first, and then get a result.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWith any team that goes there [to Brewery Field], Ospreys are a tough team to play against, because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,85185,918,8979,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-500211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-divi","10":"tag-glasgow","11":"tag-glasgow-warriors","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115375547657396474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}