Ospreys stun Montpellier

The Welsh region shocked the TOP 14 champions with tries from Sam Parry, Kieran Williams and Morgan Morris, and produced an immense defensive effort to restrict the hosts to just one score.

Brandon Paenga-Amosa crossed for Montpellier, who were ultimately outfought and outclassed on their own turf.

Fly-half Louis Carbonel opened the scoring with a penalty for Montpellier on four minutes, and the French side would have expected to push on from there.

But Ospreys proved stern opposition, defending resolutely before hooker Parry crashed over on 20 minutes amid a driving maul.

An extended period of pressure prior to that score also saw Montpellier lock Florian Verhaeghe yellow-carded, and though there was no further score during that 10 minutes, Ospreys crossed again moments after as centre Williams picked his way through with a great finish.

Ospreys looked to have handed Montpellier a route back into the game as wing Luke Morgan was sin-binned for taking out the French side’s No.8 Zach Mercer in the air on 33 minutes.

But the visitors reached the break without conceding, a series of tremendous defensive efforts seeing Montpellier come up empty-handed.

More top defensive work saw Ospreys survive the remainder of Luke Morgan’s sin bin, but Montpellier finally found a way through on 56 minutes as hooker Paenga-Amosa dotted following a maul.

Carbonel’s conversion cut the gap to four points, but Ospreys would notch a third try six minutes later as lock Adam Beard’s miss-pass picked out No.8 Morris, who crashed through the contact and over.

And the visitors almost snatched a bonus-point try when wing Alex Cuthbert looked to have finished brilliantly in the corner, but a lengthy TMO review revealed that he had a toe in touch.

More colossal defence followed as Ospreys closed the game out and stylishly ended an 11-game winless run in the competition, bouncing back from their Round 1 defeat at home to Leicester Tigers.

Montpellier and Ospreys clash again in Round 3, with the Welsh region welcoming their French opponents to Swansea.com Stadium on January 14