Scrum half Rhodri Wells is the odd one out in the Ospreys starting XV as he is yet to taste international rugby at senior level but if he continues his progress he is bound to add to his Welsh Schools, Wales U16, Wales U19 and Wales U21 caps at some stage in his burgeoning career.
The Ospreys recorded a comfortable victory at the Liberty Stadium last weekend to claim a maximum haul of points and while Holley will be expecting to snaffle a similar tally at the Stadio Comunale di Monigo, the Ospreys camp are fully aware the Italian side are a different proposition at home.
“Last week we recorded an excellent victory at the Liberty Stadium, and the challenge this time around is to ensure we deliver a similar performance on Saturday,” explained Holley.
“We are aware of the challenge that Treviso will present at home, they will be looking to put the record straight. We are under no illusions that it will be difficult, but we’ve worked hard this week on making sure that we stay focused, we’ve worked on a few areas for improvement from the last game and we are confident of producing a performance to the required standard.
“I was pleased by the ruthlessness we showed in the first Treviso game, we didn’t let up in the second half, after we had secured a bonus point, we kept on going until the final whistle and scored some late tries to round off the win.
“What made me particularly happy though was that having conceded an early try we were able to close them out of the game and didn’t concede a second, meaning we have only conceded one try in three ERC games so far. A lot of the attention we receive is based on the flair players that we have available to us, but we take great pride in our defence, which has proven to be the basis of our successes to date.”
Ospreys: 15 Lee Byrne 14 Tommy Bowe 13 Sonny Parker 12 Andrew Bishop 11 Shane Williams 10 James Hook 9 Rhodri Wells; 8 Filo Tiatia 7 Marty Holah 6 Jonathan Thomas 5 Alun-wyn Jones 4 Ian Gough 3 Adam Jones 2 Richard Hibbard 1 Paul James (capt).
Replacements: 16 Ed Shervington 17 Cai Griffiths 18 Tom Smith 19 Steve Tandy 20 Rhys Webb 21 Dan Biggar 22 Jonny Vaughton
