United Rugby Championship: Ospreys 18-14 Cardiff Rugby

Wales fly-half Gareth Anscombe kicked Ospreys to victory against his former Cardiff side in the United Rugby Championship in Swansea.

Anscombe, in his second competitive game since returning from a two-year absence with a knee injury, kicked six penalties in an 18-point haul.

It was a second Welsh derby win for Ospreys after their victory over Dragons on the opening weekend.

Cardiff responded with tries from wings Josh Adams and Owen Lane.

In front of a crowd of 5,767, Adams became the first of Wales' 2021 British and Irish Lions to start this season after Ospreys lock Adam Beard had come off the bench at Rodney Parade.

Anscombe lined up against his old Cardiff side and faced Wales fly-half Priestland who had recovered from a head injury suffered against Connacht last Friday.

The hosts named Max Nagy to make his first start at full-back to cover the hamstring injury to Dan Evans.

Anscombe demonstrated there was nothing wrong with his knee as he opened the scoring with a penalty from the halfway line.

Wales props Rhys Carre and Dillon Lewis started for Cardiff but were under pressure from Tomas Francis and Nicky Smith in the opening scrum exchanges.

Anscombe doubled the lead after Seb Davies was penalised for tackling Owen Watkin early before Adams demonstrated his scoring instinct with the opening opportunist try.

Adams punished a lethargic Ospreys defence after following up to collect a Priestland penalty kick that bounced off the post. Priestland converted.

Wales scrum-half Tomos Williams, so impressive against Connacht last weekend, was shown a yellow card for a dangerous tackle on Luke Morgan with Anscombe restoring the Ospreys' lead.

South African referee Marius van der Westhuizen evened up the numbers when Michael Collins was sin-binned for a high tackle on Hallam Amos.

Anscombe's fourth penalty was a reward for the Ospreys' first-half scrum dominance as the hosts led 12-7 at half-time.

Cardiff started the second half strongly with a scrum penalty laying the foundations for the second try with Carre providing a smart pass for Lane to dive over for his third try in two games.

Priestland converted to give Cardiff the lead before the advantage changed hands again after Anscombe's fifth penalty.

Ospreys squandered a try-scoring chance when Morgan Morris knocked the ball with the Cardiff try line begging.

Anscombe slotted over his sixth successive penalty before being replaced by Josh Thomas in the 68th minute.

Ospreys had reshuffled their backline with centre Collins switching to full-back before he was forced off himself with a leg injury.

Back-rower Ethan Roots came on with flanker Jac Morgan switching to centre and almost immediately responded with an important turnover as a patched-up Ospreys held on for victory.

Anscombe was named man-of-the-match and has now kicked 11 successful attempts and scored 30 points in his opening two league matches. Cardiff will be left to rue their indiscipline with 18 penalties conceded.

Ospreys head coach Toby Booth: "I am delighted to win a Welsh derby. We know how hard they are and we are really pleased to win in front of our home crowd.

"From an outcome point of view I am really happy, from a performance point of view there is plenty still to work on. It was efficient. We created enough pressure to eek out some penalties and we were clinical around that.

"We pride ourselves on set-piece dominance and somebody has to convert that pressure and Gareth Anscombe has certainly done that."

Cardiff director of rugby Dai Young: "We talked about the challenge up front and the penalty count went against us, in total about 18-6 and nine of those were set-piece penalties.

"I still think we produced quite a lot of opportunities on the edge and on occasions we were not accurate enough.

"Although we will have to put our hand up and say we were second best in set-piece time, I think we played some good rugby and we will look back at that on Monday and feel we left some points out there."

Ospreys: Max Nagy; Mat Protheroe, Michael Collins, Owen Watkin, Luke Morgan; Gareth Anscombe, Rhys Webb (capt); Nicky Smith, Sam Parry, Tomas Francis, Bradley Davies, Rhys Davies, Will Griffiths, Jac Morgan, Morgan Morris.

Replacements: Elvis Taione, Rhodri Jones, Tom Botha, Adam Beard, Ethan Roots, Reuben Morgan-Williams, Josh Thomas, Tiaan Thomas-Wheeler.

Cardiff Rugby: Hallam Amos; Owen Lane, Rey Lee-Lo, Willis Halaholo, Josh Adams; Rhys Priestland, Tomos Williams; Rhys Carré, Kirby Myhill, Dillon Lewis, Seb Davies, Matthew Screech, Josh Turnbull (capt), Ellis Jenkins, James Ratti.

Replacements: Kristian Dacey, Corey Domachowski, Dmitri Arhip, Rory Thornton, Will Boyde, Lloyd Williams, Ben Thomas, Matthew Morgan.

Referee: Marius van der Westhuizen (SARU)

Assistants: Ben Breakspear & Jason Morris (WRU)

TMO: AJ Jacobs (SARU)