Steve Tandy’s team marked their first home league game of the season with a six-try thrashing of an Edinburgh side that edged past the Dragons last weekend.
The four-times Celtic Champions backed up last Saturday’s draw in Leinster and an opening round win at Treviso with their best display to date as they cruised home despite the slippery conditions in Swansea.
Eli Walker and Richard Hibbard grabbed a brace of scores apiece, with Jeff Hassler and Matthew Morgan adding the others to lift the Ospreys to second in the table.
Canadian wing Hassler celebrated his first start for the region in style when he crossed for the opening try after just two minutes following a powerful driving lineout that started on the 22 and was only halted two metres short of the tryline. The former American footballer cut a fine line off scrum-half Tito Tebaldi as the Ospreys got off to the perfect start.
A conversion and two penalties from Wales fly-half Dan Biggar – who finished with 12 points – made it 13-0 after 18 minutes before Edinburgh finally troubled the scoreboard with a Harry Leonard penalty just after the half hour.
The one sour note of the night for the Ospreys came on 35 minutes when they lost Tom Smith to a suspected dislocated knee after he landed awkwardly following a controversial tackle from Edinburgh hooker Aleki Lutui.
But the disappointment of seeing their in-form blindside stretchered off didn’t stop the Ospreys from exerting their obvious superiority as Walker touched down for his first try two minutes before the break.
The uncapped wing made up for the anguish of spending much of last season on the sidelines with injury as he picked up Richard Fussell’s pass one-handed to make it 18-3 at half-time.
Things got even better for the Ospreys almost immediately after the restart as Hibbard barged over on the blindside after yet another solid lineout take from Ian Evans just five metres out.
Biggar missed the difficult conversion for the second time running but the Ospreys were looking home and dry at 23-3 with 42 minutes gone.
Edinburgh hinted at a possible comeback when Tim Visser claimed his 50th try in 73 Celtic League games three minutes later but the visitors offered very little from there on in.
Leonard’s simple conversion cut the lead to 13 points but the Ospreys showed their class and character to put the game to bed after Justin Tipuric was yellow carded for a dangerous tackle on scrum-half Sean Kennedy with half an hour left. Instead of handing Edinburgh a way back into the contest, Tipuric’s sin-binning inspired his side to finish the job in style as they added 14 points in his absence.
The impressive Hibbard claimed a second short-range score on 53 minutes before Walker finished off a superb move that featured a fine, floated pass from Ashley Beck and a perfectly-weighted grubber kick from Fussell.
Biggar slotted both difficult conversions to make it 37-10 with fully 24 minutes remaining, with Morgan completing the rout late on. The replacement fly-half showed a stunning turn of speed to sprint clear from fully 80 metres as he and his colleagues sent the Liberty Stadium faithful home happy.
