Ask what is the point of a non-contest such as this well-deserved Challenge Cup thrashing Ospreys dished out to Grenoble, and in Swansea they have an answer. They are quite happy to have added an extra training session before they play Scarlets at home two days after Christmas.
Not too rigorous, though. “It’s still a good hit-out,” Ospreys’ coach Steve Tandy said when asked where on earth was the value in winning by 68 points, only nine days after winning the reverse fixture by 52 points in France.
“We rotated the squad around. A lot of young boys have been given some rugby and played some decent stuff. In the last hour we were spot-on in what we did.”
Sam Davies was at his brilliant best but at full-back, with Dan Biggar at fly-half. Davies was a worthy contender for man of the match though in the back row the cracking Olly Cracknell was at least as influential. He is ready to keep taking a terrific opportunity with Dan Lydiate among the long-term absentees.
But Ospreys were not alone in making wholesale changes. Grenoble also “rotated”, then virtually vanished. Tandy rested his forward luminaries Alun Wyn Jones and Justin Tipuric, among others, yet against a motley French crew Ospreys looked no less a first choice than if Jones and Tipuric had played.
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Even allowing for some exceptional individual performances, and above all an overwhelming collective one, it was far too easy against pitifully, typically unmotivated French visitors way too far from the sound of their own church bells.
“Sorry about the non-match,” Grenoble’s coach Bernard Jackman offered. He won this competition with Sale in 2002, but admitted he had left his first team in France.
After four bonus-point wins, Ospreys control Pool Two to the extent that something will have to go badly amiss in next month’s return games with Lyon and Newcastle if they are to fail. In their first season out of the Champions Cup they are clearly capable of winning its kid brother.
It was odd, given what followed, that Grenoble began strongly enough for Gilles Bosch’s penalty to give them the lead, and Grenoble’s scrum was occasionally stronger until the disintegration after Ospreys’ 10th try by Scott Otten.
After Bosch, the bosh was entirely one-way. Scott Baldwin scored two tries as soon as Mathias Marie had been sin-binned for a high tackle on Brendon Leonard. By a complementary mix of forward power and longer-range attacking adventure, the score went inexorably up.
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Between the bludgeon and the rapier Hanno Dirksen also had two tries on his return from a protracted injury lay-off. As well as Baldwin and Otten, the two hookers, Ashley Beck, Cracknell, Dan Evans, Leonard, Dan Biggar and Adam Beard scored the others. Biggar converted eight of the 11.
At least Tandy has the wherewithal, both in personnel and his players’ attitude of mind — in contrast with the hard-pressed Jackman. The only thing on Grenoble’s minds, as the Alpine club sit at the foot of a Top 14 that to them towers like Mont Blanc, is Thursday’s game at Stade des Alpes against Toulouse.
“There is no alignment between the Top 14 and the Challenge Cup,” Jackman said. “It’s very difficult to play Toulouse in a must-win game to save the club’s future and balance that with a requirement to send our best players here.”
And there we were thinking the T14 was awash with euros. This trip to Wales was even more of an intrusion to their bigger priorities than when they shipped 59 points to Ospreys last Friday, in a fixture postponed because nothing had been done to protect the pitch from impending frost.
That administrative disorganisation has twice been faithfully replicated on the field, though the nine tries conceded in Grenoble became 11 at the Liberty. No doubt Ospreys should have been kicking themselves for merely equalling their European tries and winning-margin records.
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Tandy had made multiple changes from the previous week. Jackman more or less called his choice an academy side — which was certainly how they callowly played, even if their captain David Mélé, not long ago a Leicester scrum-half, is 31.
At best they were a mixture of seconds and even thirds. That they have failed to grace this unsatisfactory competition is of no importance to Grenoble. Perversely but obviously, the worst fate that could befall them would be the complication of the quarter-final place the Ospreys crave and deserve.
Star man: Olly Cracknell (Ospreys)
Scorers: Ospreys: Tries: Cracknell 19, Beck 30, Baldwin 34, 38, Evans 40, Leonard 42, Biggar 56, Dirksen 67, 78, Otten 72, Beard 74 Cons: Buggar 8
Grenoble: Pen: Bosch
Yellow card: Grenoble: Marie
Referee: Luke Pearce
Attendance: 7,039
Ospreys: S Davies, Howells (Dirksen 59min), Fonotia, Beck (Matavesi 50-57min), D Evans, Biggar, Leonard (capt) (Habberfield 62min), Smith (G Thomas 50min), Baldwin (Otten 57min), R Jones (Fia 57min), Ashley (Beard 50min), Thornton, Cracknell (McCusker 61min), Underhill, King
Grenoble: Gelin, P Mignot (Farrell 49-58min), Sawailau (Farrell 58min), Hunt, Guillemin (X Mignot 61min), Bosch, Mele (capt) (Saseras 61min), Coulson (De Klerk 71min), Fourcade, Desmaison (Edwards h-t), Marie, Jolmes (Capelli 57min), Hand, Kormath (Baradel h-t), Alexandre