A strangely muted contest ended with honours even. Having threatened to come to life in the closing minutes as the Ospreys looked to complete their second-half comeback, they were awarded a penalty on the stroke of full-time and instead of going for the outrageous play from deep in their own half, they watched as Dan Biggar, truly outstanding from first touch to this last one, tapped the ball off the pitch.
To be satisfied with a draw at home may not seem the height of ambition, but the end-play was an act of compassion by the fly-half who had watched his forwards take a lot of punishment. It was time to make a dignified exit.
Going into a game with a fifth-choice No8 and loosehead prop against a French club, the Ospreys knew they were in for a tough old afternoon where the sun doesn’t shine. So it turned out to be, with the driving maul the chosen vehicle for the giants of the French pack.
As early as the third minute the Racing Métro forwards assembled in front of the ball caught at a lineout and heaved themselves into kicking range. Stopping it legally proved to be a challenge and – on this occasion – beyond the Ospreys, one of whom nipped in from the side. John Goosen, not so much a freethinker at 10 as a slave to his forwards, landed his first penalty.
It was going to be a tough afternoon for the home forwards. Next up was a scrum and before the ball was put in they were penalised in the front row. Goosen was successful again. Pain and penalty seemed to be the sequence of the day.
Biggar did his best to keep the ball on the field of play and was spectacular with his catching. Inside him, Rhys Webb was enjoying his confrontation with Mike Phillips, the scrum-half he has replaced in the Wales team. If the Ospreys could win any sort of possession there was still a chance their No9 and 10 could find a way out of the choke-hold up front. As if to make the point, Biggar was accurate with a penalty from wide out.
As if to make a point of their own, Racing launched their forwards again, not so much in the mauling huddle as individually, peeling around the fringes of the breakdown, weakening the defence until it gave way and Francois van der Merwe, the most monstrous of the monsters, stretched out an arm seemingly several metres long and planted the ball for the try. Goosen made it a South African double-act with the conversion.
The task of the Ospreys forwards grew even more demanding when James King was ordered to the sin-bin for hauling down another driving maul. Goosen kicked the penalty and it should have started a 10-minute period of extreme punishment. Instead, when King returned his team were three points to the good and Webb and Biggar were starting to run the show.
The last flicker of danger from the French for quite some time came when Marc Andreu had a little run and fed Alexandre Dumoulin, the centre who generally keeps Jamie Roberts on the Parisian bench, but who here promptly dropped the pass. It was a good way to herald the period of dormancy that lasted from the closing moments of the first half to the start of the closing quarter.
While the French were well off the boil, the Ospreys nibbled away at the score. They might have racked even more than two penalties if Biggar had not been a little too nonchalant with his easiest penalty and rapped it against the post.
It didn’t seem to matter because the Ospreys were in the right area of the field to be more expansive and less bound to close-quarters. In such space, Justin Tipuric began to be conspicuous, making the catch of the game above his head and starting to hold the ball out in front of him, his trademark carrying style.
Meanwhile, Racing were confined to a drop-goal attempt by Goosen. It missed and they returned to defensive duty. But suddenly, as if responding to a slap to wake up, they found the power switch and began to rumble forward with the maul and scrum. Goosen made sure with his second drop attempt and that seemed to be that: game over with 10 minutes to play.
It was anything but. Tipuric, ever trying to speed up the game, took a penalty quickly and the ball danced around between himself and Eli Walker, back on elusive form on the wing, and finally Josh Matavesi, the Fijian centre who ran to score near the posts. Biggar took more time with the easy conversion and the scores were level.
The Ospreys had to survive a penalty shot and a drop attempt by Goosen and several charges from the monsters. It was at that point that they took the decision to settle for the draw and kick the ball out of play, preferring to rest before the away day in Paris in a week.
