Dan very much still the man you’d want in your team when it comes to the crunch
TWO rounds of the United Rugby Championship completed, just one Welsh side still unbeaten.
The latest weekend of action was a mixed bag for our regions
Here, MARK ORDERS looks at the latest winners and losers from the URC and beyond...
WINNERS
DAN BIGGAR Dan Biggar endured a bruising afternoon for Northampton Saints that saw him require treatment for a neck injury.
But he has shown over his career he’s made of the right stuff.
Just minutes after being looked at by the Saints medics, he dusted himself down to kick the matchwinning penalty for his team in their 23-21 victory over London Irish.
It completed a 13-point haul for the Wales fly-half in his first game back since the Lions tour.
Headlines styled him as the man who got Saints out of jail. One even called him a returning hero.
The assumption is he won’t read too much into those.
The match was widely panned but Biggar wanted to play. One write-up said he and half-back partner Alex Mitchell offered “fizzing passes and cute pops off the shoulder as if bathed in sunshine”.
But, ultimately, it came down to goal-kicking.
When that happens, there are few players you’d want more on your side than Dan Biggar.
BEN BURNELL
His hairstyle suggests he might be en route to a Led Zeppelin concert circa 1971.
But Ben Burnell is showing himself to be very much a sportsman for the modern age.
The Wales U20s fly-half has been earning encouraging reviews and on Saturday he was at it again, helping to secure his dad Justin’s Pontypridd side victory over Merthyr in the Welsh Premiership Cup.
The youngster kicked three penalties and a conversion as the hosts ran out 21-14 winners at Sardis Road, overturning a 14-5 interval deficit.
Later, Pontypridd head coach Justin Burnell paid tribute to his son and to No. 8 Evan Lloyd.
“Evan and Ben were outstanding,” said Burnell senior.
“We must remember these are young players.
“Those two boys are coming into us from a national U20 campaign from the summer.
“It was a good win. With the way the game started we were under the cosh but we’re a young and inexperienced team who don’t roll over. We’re lucky with the players we have.”
Burnell the Younger is still only a teenager, but he has already played for Wales U20s and his potential appears big.
Ioan Dyer, rugby reporter for GTFM radio, tweeted during Saturday’s match: “Ben Burnell, just wow.”
Traditionally, a No. 10 with the wow factor in Welsh rugby has a chance.
Just maybe this latest model to roll off the production line will go places. The signs are promising.
JAC MORGAN He’s still a young player and he’s still developing his game.
But Jac Morgan is proving everything the Ospreys hoped he would be when they signed him from the Scarlets.
Playing against Cardiff, the youngster banged in another stellar performance, unyielding in defence, strong over the ball and with a big workrate.
ESPN’S stats suggest he has made 35 tackles without a single miss so far this season, while his ability to achieve turnovers is already counting for a lot with the Ospreys.
He is also someone who comes up with big moments in a game, none more so on Saturday than when he tracked back after making one tackle to achieve a possession steal seconds later with skill that the watching Justin Tipuric would have signed off.
With fellow youngsters Rhys Davies, Will Griffiths and Morgan Morris all shining again, and Gareth Anscombe showing up well behind, the Ospreys have started the season well.
LOSERS
MICHAEL COLLINS The old adage suggests the time to be most wary is when everything seems to be clicking into place. That’s when the roof tends to fall in.
The roof didn’t fall in on Ospreys centre Michael Collins against Cardiff.
But the Wales-qualified former Super Rugby man picked up an injury that saw him limp from the field.
Injuries are part of sport but some are more untimely than others.
This one happened with Wayne Pivac and the Wales selectors in the stand and the squad for the autumn Tests about to be picked.
They will surely hope the ex-otago captain makes a speedy recovery.
CARDIFF’S SCRUM AND DISCIPLINE
One penalty count suggested Cardiff had transgressed 18 times against the Ospreys in Swansea.
Another reckoned they had conceded 16 penalties.
Either way, it’s a statement of the obvious to suggest it’s hard to win a match when incurring the wrath of the referee to such an extent.
One or two calls aside, the visitors found themselves under the cosh in the scrums.
“We talked about the challenge up front and the penalty count went against us, in total about 18-6 with nine of those set-piece penalties,” said director of rugby Dai Young later.
Young was right to add that his side had played some good rugby.
But he was also bang on the money to suggest they’d been second best in the set-piece. It just makes life difficult. No prizes for guessing what the work-ons in training will be this week.
SCARLETS SCRUM
There are two schools of thought about what happened in the scrums at Parc y Scarlets in round two.
One contended the Lions were particularly good at that facet of play.
The other reckoned the Scarlets set-piece simply misfired.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
South African teams tend not to neglect their scrummaging. Power is at the heart of what they’re about and rare is it that a side from the republic are shoved around in the set-pieces.
Even so, with the likes of Rob Evans, Willgriff John and Samson Lee on front-row duty, the Scarlets would have hoped to have held their own.
But the visitors held a clear upper hand there.
Perhaps the Scarlets missed the ballast that the strong scrummaging Jake Ball provided from the second row. Ball supplied tractor-like go-forward to the set-piece that wasn’t always recognised.
Dwayne Peel used two young locks at various points during the game against the Lions and it can take time for youngsters to generate the kind of power Ball used to bring to the table.
Injuries to Aaron Shingler and Sam Lousi haven’t helped the situation, either.
But the scrum doctor out west will want to put matters right as quickly as possible.