Dan Biggar has insisted the Ospreys made the right choice in opting to take a draw against Saracens in order to keep their European Champions Cup quarter-final hopes alive.
The Wales fly-half kicked a late penalty to tie the scores against the defending champions at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday night.
The 15-15 draw means the Ospreys can finish top of Pool Two and make the knockout stages if they beat Clermont Auvergne in France this weekend.
They could have chosen to have gone for a try and late victory to put themselves within a single point of Clermont in the table and Biggar said: “There was a slight discussion. We thought about being bold and going for the try.
“It would have knocked Sarries out and given ourselves an even better chance next week.
“But common sense prevailed and we decided to take the draw and get the two points. The decision to kick the ball out at the end was right as well. We needed to make sure we go there with something to play for.
“We now have to go to Clermont and try to get a result.”
Biggar – who shared 10 penalties with opposite number England fly-half Owen Farrell – admitted the game was not spectacle in difficult conditions, when compared to the Scarlets’ eye-catching win in Bath on Friday night.
“It wasn’t one for the purist, certainly not the kind of free-flowing rugby that was on show at The Rec the other night, but it was just as important for us.
“The forwards put a huge shift in against the best team in Europe for the last two or three years.
“At scrum time, we have been good. Having two guys like Bradley Davies and Alun Wyn Jones in the second row make a huge difference to our front rows. They are monster guys.”
Ospreys coach Steve Tandy said: “It’s huge… a lot of it [qualification] is still in our control, we’re not dependent on other results.
“It’s about us going to France and hopefully scoring points and taking the game.
“We had a fully loaded Saracens team coming here, we were pretty patched up and the boys haven’t done a lot of training this week.
“So I’m just super proud of this group. We just stayed in there, we felt they’d give penalties away and we could knock them over. It’s not always about scoring four tries.”
