Ospreys bossToby Booth has been speaking about the challenge of matching the standards setby the South African sides in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship as he preparesto take on the DHL Stormers.

The four teamsfrom the Rainbow nation are all in the top half of the Vodacom URC table having won tenof their 12 matches against European opposition so far this season.

Reigningchampions, the DHL Stormers from Cape Town, have picked up maximum pointshaving secured late bonus points in victories over Connacht, Edinburgh Rugby andZebre Parma. So it will be a real test for Booth’s Ospreys at the Swansea.com Stadiumon Friday night.

“I think theinvolvement of the South African teams and the way they play means you can’tget away with certain things that you probably got away with and you’ve got tobe better at certain aspects,” said the head coach.

“They areraising the standard of, for example, attacking play and athleticism. So Ithink the challenge for us all is to try and meet and match that because theywill have good set-piece, they will be defensively sound and the way they areset up lends itself more to an attacking game. I think the inclusion of thequality of those South African teams has certainly meant that everyone has gotto embrace that sort of style and be better at it themselves.”

Reflectingfurther on the way the new season has started in the Vodacom URC, Booth said: “I thinkpeople have definitely wanted to be positive. Speaking to coaches, I get ageneral sense that people want to be positive, so I think there’s a mindsetelement to it. It’s not just in our competition, if I look across differentcompetitions, there have been high scoring games.

“I think peoplewant the game to speed up, which is why the biggest animosity I hear indifferent circles is around length of time on TMO decisions, stoppages andteams that want to slow the game down.

“We have toaccept that we are trying to provide entertainment and enjoyment, not just playa game of rugby, and that means making the game quicker, with less stoppages init and keeping tempo.

“We have had acouple of first halves that have gone close to 55-60 minutes in actualduration. Of course, some of that is injury and you can’t legislate for that,but there is still a lot of dead time in the game and the more we can quickenit up the better.

“The attitude ofthe teams seems to be more edging towards that way and I think we will get abetter product, better games and as a result better entertainment.”

Following histeam’s home victory over Glasgow Warriors, Booth made a number of changes forlast Saturday’s trip to Belfast to take on Ulster and was forced into two morealterations when hugely experienced duo Dan Lydiate and Stephen Myler had topull out late in the day. They ended up losing 47-17 and will now be looking tobounce back when they host the DHL Stormers, with some big names likely to returnfor the meeting with the champs.