Gareth Anscombe: Wales fly-half makes Ospreys debut at Northampton
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Gareth Anscombe made his Wales debut in 2015
Wales outside-half Gareth Anscombe made his long-awaited return from injury in Ospreys' pre-season defeat at Northampton on Friday.
The 30-year-old lasted 37 minutes before coming off as the visitors planned ahead of the break.
He had not featured since suffering a serious knee injury against England at Twickenham in August 2019.
Anscombe aggravated the injury in October 2020 when it was announced he faced a further year out.
He joined Ospreys from Cardiff in the summer of 2019 but had watched from the sidelines since then.
Anscombe finally got his first Ospreys game time as he started against the English side at Franklin's Gardens, adding a conversion from the touchline to Mat Protheroe's early try in the 31-26 loss.
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It was a final warm-up game for the Ospreys before their opening United Rugby Championship (URC) fixture away to Dragons on Sunday, 26 September.
"It's been a long time coming, longer than I would have liked but to finally put on the boots and play 35 minutes is really pleasing," said Anscombe.
"The knee has come out really well and hopefully it is the start of my journey with the Ospreys. All in all, I am pretty pleased and am just glad to get back out there."
Anscombe admitted his period on the sidelines had been longer than anticipated.
"It has been tricky, there have been so many ups and downs, it's been so much longer than I thought originally," added Anscombe.
"I have to thank a ton of people, there have been so many people behind the scenes who have worked long hours with myself. They have put up with me being pretty negative at times and pretty down.
"They are the guys I owe a lot of this to, a lot of my family have been amazing by supporting me and given me a boost when I needed it because at times it was quite tough to see the light.
"I am thankful I have had such a strong network around me. The people with the Ospreys have been amazing and really supported my journey.
"I have had help from the Union at times which has been nice and we are finally here. It's been a combination of a lot of things.
"I never expected it to take this long, I don't think anybody did. It's been a long hard road and now I look forward to playing some rugby throughout the year and hopefully I can lead this Ospreys team around."
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