Peter Jackson: Let’s hear it for these Ospreys heroes!

Toulouse had been to Wales many times before last week, losing the odd game by the odd point here and there. They would have had good reason to be on their guard when they arrived in Swansea for some unfinished business with the Ospreys a few days after clipping their wings in southern France and sending them home empty-handed.
The biggest club in Europe ought to have smelt a rat when one Welsh pundit, the former dual-code international Adrian Hadley, denounced the three Welsh teams in a European context as ‘uncompetitive.’   In other words, a spent force, a bit of a push-over.
Maybe Toulouse looked at how many Ospreys had flown the coop since they won the third of their four Celtic League titles in Dublin in May 2010. Had they  done so, they would have been reminded how the bones of that championship team had been picked clean, mainly by the French.
Clermont took the full-back, Lee Byrne.   The right wing, Tommy Bowe, rejoined Ulster; the inside centre James Hook went to Perpignan; the left wing Shane Williams to Japan; the scrum-half Mike Phillips to Bayonne; the hooker, Huw Bennett, to Lyon; one flanker, Jerry Collins, to Japan, the other flanker, Marty Holah, back to New Zealand.
The locks for the denouement in Dublin three seasons ago, Alun-Wyn Jones and Jonathan Thomas, sat the Toulouse match out because of injury.   The tighthead prop, Adam Jones, was back on the bench after a lengthy absence.
That left just three survivors in the starting XV from the one in Dublin – Andrew Bishop at No. 13, Dan Biggar at No. 10 and Ryan Jones at No. 8.  Even in a sport where nothing stays the same for very long these days, it represented one heck of a turn-over in personnel.
When Toulouse ran out and Jones the Prop settled in his seat among the substitutes, his mind wandered back to when the Ospreys first tangled with the French emperors, back during their inaugural season in 2003.  Jones reminded himself that Toulouse had done pretty much as they pleased that day.  “They had the bonus point before half-time with four tries in the first half,” he said.  “They weren’t much bothered after that.    Remembering that is what makes beating them all the more special.”
A few grim weeks at Test and international level had brought Welsh rugby to its knees.  Somebody had to stand up somewhere in defiance of the odds. Despite all the body blows, not so much over the last two seasons but the last two months, the Ospreys rose Phoenix-like from the ashes.
In beating Toulouse by the comprehensive margin of 17-6, they inflicted the worst beating the richest club in Europe have ever suffered on European duty in Wales where, of course, they won the first of their four titles at Cardiff Arms Park in 1996.
The Welsh Rugby Union should issue a statement bearing the proclamation: “Let’s hear it for the Ospreys.”
They won’t of course because there is not much love lost between them but after doing the game as a whole a mighty favour, wouldn’t it be grand if they socked it to Leicester in Swansea in the New Year and went into the final pool match against Treviso in Italy within reach of a place in the last eight.
And wouldn’t it be grander still if they got there at the expense of Toulouse…?