Webb shines again, but it’s the unsung heroes who are the real star performers
ANOTHER round of Welsh derbies has come and gone, with all the spoils heading westbound on the M4 after the Scarlets and Ospreys left Newport and Cardiff respectively with victories.
It meant the two are still battling it out for the Welsh Shield and, perhaps more enticingly, for a spot in the Champions Cup next season. They meet at the Swansea.com Stadium this weekend for what is now a mouthwatering clash.
So who impressed and who didn’t this weekend?
WINNERS Physios go above and beyond
Two physios were the heroes during a Welsh club match on Saturday as they went above and beyond to help a stricken player amid worrying scenes.
Ystalyfera’s Championship clash with Pontypool was abandoned before half-time after Arwel Thomas sustained a neck injury after coming down awkwardly when competing for the ball in the air.
With huge concern among players and spectators, the Welsh Ambulance Service gave a timescale of four hours to attend. Physios from both clubs – Ystalyfera’s Natalie Hawkins and Pontypool’s Adam Brown – ensured Thomas was kept comfortable and safe for the wait.
They took it in half-hour stints to hold Thomas’s neck in a safe place until the ambulance arrived.
Ystalyfera’s rugby manager Damian
James said: “Between Pontypool’s physio and our physio, they both stayed on the pitch with him until the ambulance arrived.
“He stayed in the same position he landed. Natalie was on the pitch in a matter of seconds. The referee blew up because of the challenge and, from there, he didn’t move.
“She positioned herself to hold up his neck and they both swapped over for the three hours.
“He was put in a comfortable position lying there, with them watching his neck. They were excellent. Both sides dealt with it brilliantly. Their physio Adam was meant to be going out for a meal with his wife, but he said he wouldn’t be going anywhere. He stayed for the duration.”
Thomas was eventually taken to hospital and was released at 11pm on Saturday night after assessments.
Rhys Webb
Without getting too drawn into the perennial debate around Webb and a position in the Wales squad, he was good at the weekend, very good.
It must be noted that his pack laid a solid enough foundation for him to operate from, but he was still at his best, dictating matters nicely and leading from the front.
He put a nice kick behind the Cardiff
defence which should have resulted in a Keelan Giles try in the first half and he was generally a threat around the fringes and passed well.
Webb shot out of the line to pick off a Rhys Priestland pass before sprinting away to score a try that really killed the game off.
To make things a little bit sweeter, his man-of-the-match performance came opposite Wales favourite Tomos Williams.
The state of his relationship with Wales boss Wayne Pivac remains a mystery and we are blessed with quality No. 9s in Wales. But Webb is sending out all the right messages.
Finals Day
Sunday was a big day for club rugby in Wales with National Club Finals Day at the Principality Stadium.
It’s always a highlight of the Welsh rugby calendar with clubs heading to the national stadium for a big day out and it did not disappoint.
With games being shown live on S4C, the players did their bit to make things as entertaining as you’d hope, with all three matches decided by just one score.
To start the day, Trebanos beat Bedwas in the Championship Plate final thanks to a last-minute penalty from Matthew Edwards.
Neath then staged a comeback in the Championship Cup final. Having been trailing by 10 points at half-time, they came back to beat Bargoed 16-13 in another tense affair.
In the final match of the day, Newport staged a rally in the final 15 minutes to beat Aberavon 25-21 in the Premiership Cup final, with young fly-half Will Reed – who recently toured South Africa with the Dragons – kicking 15 of his side’s points.
There were 6,000 fans in attendance throughout the day. Great stuff.
Jac Morgan
You’d be hard pressed to remember the last time Morgan put in a bad performance, but he was outstanding at the Arms Park and a strong contender to have had claimed the man-of-thematch award.
The game itself was drab for 40 minutes. It was scrappy, error-strewn and low on intensity but Morgan was the shining light.
He was seemingly covering every blade of artificial grass. He carried superbly, defended resolutely and won a number of penalties at the breakdown. He has to be a contender for signing of the season, but that was entirely predictable given how he finished up with the Scarlets last year.
Again, the openside position is fiercely contested in Wales, but Morgan shone opposite Josh Navidi and that is noteworthy.
It is tough to find weakness in his game and that felt like a real statement from the young man.
Sam Lousi
Speaking of impressive signings, Scarlets lock Sam Lousi (circled, left) is earning praise as one of the standout overseas acquisitions in recent times and it’s easy to see why. He has seemingly got a grip of his discipline this season and is a real force to be reckoned with, a key cog in the Scarlets pack. The Tongan has a valuable knack of attracting multiple defenders while waving the ball in the air one-handed before getting an unlikely offload away. His octopus-like arms were to the fore during the win over the Dragons as he reached over a defender to dab the ball down one-handed. He was also involved in the buildup to a handful of other scores. He’s having a top season in Llanelli.
Sioned Harries
Wales back-rower Sioned Harries snatched a last-gasp try as a relentless Welsh team gave France a strong run for their money in the second half of a 33-5 defeat on Friday night.
Harries, who made her return to the Test arena this Six Nations after more than 800 days in the international wilderness, has been something of a super-sub, coming off the bench in three of Wales’s games so far around a start against England.
And it was no different in Wales’s penultimate tournament game at the Arms Park, when Harries scored a consolation try with the last move of the game thanks to her outstretched arm getting the ball over the line after a strong driving line-out.
Her efforts rounded off an encouraging second half from the hosts.
England and France are a level ahead in the Six Nations, but Wales can carry positives into their finale against Italy on Saturday when they will bid to cement their position of third in the table at the Arms Park.
Louis Rees-zammit
The flying winger seems to have had little trouble getting over what was a difficult Six Nations campaign this year and is back in fine form for Gloucester, as evidenced by his performance against Bristol at the weekend.
Rees-zammit scorched the turf to burn off a few defenders after the hosts had taken an early 17-0 lead before attracting two defenders and throwing a nice offload to send teammate Charlie Chapman over for his side’s first try.
“This try is only scored because of the pace of Rees-zammit,” purred Austin Healy on commentary for BT Sport.
He then ran a smart line inside Adam Hastings to take a pass, coast through a gap and around the last defender, looking like he barely got out of second gear.
He looks like he’s playing with a confidence that will please Wayne Pivac. If he ever finds himself in space, it’s lights out.
LOSERS Cardiff’s pack
It’s turning into a miserable end to the season for Cardiff, who have now lost four matches in a row, two of them heavily and three of them in Welsh derbies.
But looking at the respective teamsheets on Saturday ahead of the clash with the Ospreys, there seemed an alarming gulf between the quality of the two packs and that is eventually where the game was won and lost.
To their credit, Cardiff did win a few scrum penalties which raised the eyebrows but they were extremely poor at the lineout, much to the frustration of director of rugby Dai Young after the match, who estimated they lost five, killing any momentum they were able to generate.
Gianluca Gnecchi First we must acknowledge that refereeing is not an easy job, but those in the middle have some serious responsibility.
First and foremost, they have an obligation to ensure the rules of the game are enforced but they also have a major impact on how the game develops as a spectacle.
Mr Gnecchi was fussy to the extreme at the Arms Park and had to check two first-half efforts from the Ospreys with his TMO. Had he been any closer to the potential groundings in realtime, he’d have been sat on top of the ball.
If a referee has to check with his TMO to get to the right decision, then so be it. But that decision has to be reached promptly. Checking a third potential Ospreys try in the second half, Mr Gnecchi stood at the opposite end of the ground from the big screen while replays were shown of a potential Alex Cuthbert knock-on in the build-up.
A short while later, it was almost as if he suddenly remembered it was his job to make a decision on what was being shown and he hesitantly cantered to the middle of the pitch, still too far away to see clearly, before eventually making a call. Fans in the stands grew understandably restless.
Ospreys boss Toby Booth insisted he’d “go through the proper channels” about the performance of the referee after his side failed to get a bonus point, which could end up being crucial in the race for a Champions Cup spot.
Dragons fans
A week is a long time in sport. In fairness, most Dragons fans will have probably seen last week as a bit of an upset rather than expecting it to have been a launchpad to a successful end to what has been a borderline disastrous year for the region.
But when the Dragons were 19-17 up against the Scarlets around the hour mark, putting them in a perfect position to secure what would have been astounding back-to-back wins over the Llanelli region, the hope came.
But just as quickly as it came, it was snatched away.
Dean Ryan’s side collapsed in the final 20 minutes and the Scarlets kicked it up a few gears to run out 38-19 winners. The Dragons, then, failed to build on their second win of the season and it left their director of rugby fuming.
“Our error rate and our quality of play is not good enough,” said Ryan. “That is something that we have got to address.
“We have got to get to a stage where we don’t pick them, and that’s quite difficult for us because it’s quite clear at the moment that when we lose people our levels of depth are not there.
“The only thing that is going to change that is that we won’t pick them, because we are quite aligned in what we talk about but we are not aligned in what happens out there.
“There are two or three mistakes in the second half that put them straight back on the fivemetre line, which is not acceptable.”