a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Z0GMBaSoOOM/S1VH5jMiyJI/AAAAAAAADv0/LfsVtQgaKCQ/s1600-h/clermont-dump-ospreys.jpg"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 350px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Z0GMBaSoOOM/S1VH5jMiyJI/AAAAAAAADv0/LfsVtQgaKCQ/s400/clermont-dump-ospreys.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428323979890968722" border="0" //aspan style="font-weight: bold;"Clermont Auvergne convincingly beat the Ospreys 27-7 in a crucial Pool 3 Heineken Cup clash at Stade Marcel Michelin on the weekend. By doing so, they’ve edged closer towards topping the pool next weekend. /spanbr /br /Brock James scored 17 points to add to tries from wingers Julien Malzieu and Napolioni Nalaga in the second half, denying the Ospreys the possibility of at least picking up a vital losing bonus point.br /br /The Welsh region started well, with a converted try for Tommy Bowe, but they missed out on a few chances and Clermont’s power showed as they ran away with the match, coming into their own in the second half.br /br /Flyhalf James hit the posts on a few occasions, but he took all other chances presented to him, making the visitors pay for their missed opportunities.br /br /“Full credit goes to Clermont as we were beaten by the better side. In fact, they were amazing especially Brock James,” said Ospreys head coach Sean Holley.br /br /“You have to admire them but we came here with a lot of hope and ambition and we saw that in the early exchanges. But the penalty count was 14-2 against us and they came in the scrum. That clearly had an effect in the end.br /br /“It is an extremely disappointing dressing room and we’re disappointed for the fans but Clermont were worthy winners,” he added.br /br /Clermont head coach Vern Cotter said: “The Ospreys came at us early on and found some gaps in our defence. But we tightened up and took control. It was a hard battle on a heavy pitch so it’s a good win. We are in good shape to qualify from such a tough group.”br /br /Clermont will take on Viadana in their last pool clash this weekend, with a maximum points haul there being enough to take them through to the last eight. The Ospreys will host Leicester in Swansea.br /br /centerobject width="400" height="288"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-8HRuaH35hoamp;hl=en_GBamp;fs=1amp;rel=0"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-8HRuaH35hoamp;hl=en_GBamp;fs=1amp;rel=0amp;showinfo=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="288"/embed/object/centerbr /span style="font-size:85%;"span style="font-weight: bold;"Time:/span 05:00br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Note: /spanThanks to WRNbr //spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"http://www.rugbydump.comimg width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/32316390-5923861546679975007?l=rugbydump.blogspot.com' alt='' //divdiv class="feedflare"a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rugbydump?a=RpR6LxkAUtQ:4LcuFX2FRec:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/rugbydump?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/rugbydump/~4/RpR6LxkAUtQ" height="1" width="1"/ More...