Ospreys seal first win of the season against Zebre

Keiran Williams has played one international for Wales

United Rugby Championship: Ospreys v Zebre

Ospreys (14) 24

Tries: Cokanasiga, Morse, Ratti Cons: Edwards 3 Pen: Edwards

Zebre (0) 0

Ospreys enjoyed a first victory of the United Rugby Championship season by beating Zebre convincingly in Bridgend.

Tries from centre Phil Cokanasiga, number eight Morgan Morse and lock James Ratti and nine points from fly-half Dan Edwards delivered the win.

Ospreys stopped a sequence of four straight league defeats since beating Dragons in Swansea in April.

Zebre won their opening two games against Edinburgh and Lions but were poor opponents on this occasion, with the Italian side having now only won twice in 41 league matches in Wales.

Ospreys host Glasgow Warriors next Saturday, while Zebre are at home to unbeaten Stormers.

Ospreys lost their opening two games against Bulls and Stormers on their mini tour of South Africa.

They returned home for a first home match of a season at the Brewery Field, where the Ospreys are playing this season, with a crowd of 4,519 attending the contest against Zebre.

Ospreys hope to move into a redeveloped St Helen's in Swansea for the 2026-27 season, but they are still waiting on the Welsh Rugby Union review into the future of professional rugby, which could result in sides being cut.

It was a proud moment for Bridgend boy Dewi Lake to captain the Ospreys side in the absence of Wales flanker Jac Morgan who is still suffering from a calf injury.

Ospreys made two personnel changes to the starting side that lost to Stormers with Morse and prop Tom Botha coming in for Rhys Davies and Rhys Henry.

Ospreys' fast start

Dewi Lake was the Wales captain on the summer tour of Japan

Flanker Harri Deaves led the side out on his 50th Ospreys appearance and the hosts opened the scoring with a well-worked try, finished by Cokanasiga, who dummied his way through the Zebre defence.

That was soon followed up by a wonderful move that was finished off by number eight Morse.

The flowing passage of play included clever offloads from player of the match and full-back Jack Walsh, centre Keiran Williams and Edwards, who also slotted over the conversion.

Ospreys suffered a blow when Wales scrum-half Kieran Hardy was forced off injured and replaced by Reuben Morgan-Williams.

The Ospreys scrum, which had struggled in the opening couple of games, was on top in the first half as the home side led 14-0 at half-time.

A quiet second half was almost brought alive by a well-worked try for centre Williams, but he was denied because of a knock-on.

Another scrum penalty saw Edwards slot over a penalty before Ospreys initially spurned a third try after replacement centre Tom Florence burst through before inexplicably failing to deliver a try-scoring pass to Morgan-Williams.

The hosts did not have to wait too long as Ratti, having moved to the back row, crashed over before Ospreys were denied a bonus-point try.

Ospreys head coach Mark Jones: "I am very happy. When you get your first home game, especially in your new home or temporary home for this season, you want to get off to a good start.

"You only get one chance to make a first impression and I thought in all areas of our game today, we showed high quality.

"I suppose the only maybe slight down is we didn't get the five points but to have a zero next to your name is good.

"We spoke about improving our defensive performance and continuing with the good attack stuff.

"I think we made another step forward in all those areas, which is why I'm very happy for the players."

Ospreys: Walsh; Kasende, P Cokanasiga, K Williams, Giles; Edwards, Hardy; G Thomas, Lake (capt), Botha, Ratti, Sutton, Moriarty, Deaves, Morse.

Replacements: L Lloyd, Phillips, Warren, R Davies, Fender, Morgan-Williams, Florence, Hopkins.

Zebre: Montemauri; Pani, Zanon, Lucchin, Gesi; Farias, Dominguez; Buonfiglio (capt), Ribaldi, Nocera, Canali, Ortombina, Volpi, Bianchi, Ruggeri.

Replacements: Quattrini, Hasa, Pitinari, Carrera, Locatelli, Varotto, Morisi, M Belloni.

Referee: Eoghan Cross (IRFU)

Assistant referees: Ben Connor (WRU), Aaron Parry (WRU).

TMO: Leo Colgan (IRFU).