Reed all about it – fly-half shines as WRU and Scarlets feel the heat
WAYNE Pivac will have plenty to ponder in the coming days after a weekend in which he was given reminders by players who may fancy a summer trip to South Africa.
Some of those helped the Ospreys keep the pressure on the Scarlets in the battle for Heineken Champions Cup qualification.
But it hasn’t all been rosy in the garden, with the Welsh Rugby Union again coming under fire.
Here are the week’s winners and losers...
WINNERS Will Reed
After impressing for Newport RFC in the Welsh Premiership all season, the Dragons have started transitioning 20-year-old Reed into their senior team – and the early signs are good.
Without getting too carried away, the fundamentals in Reed’s game look very solid indeed. There is much to learn at professional level, where the gaps close a lot faster and decisions have to be made a lot quicker, but the early signs are promising.
He has a sizeable boot on him and impressed against the Ospreys despite being on the losing side.
There’s a lot to like about the flyhalf. Let’s see where it goes.
Lloyd Williams
Williams is the kind of player who moves through the season and often goes under the radar a little bit, not really getting the praise he deserves and rarely getting a serious mention when it comes to the Wales No. 9 debate.
But there are clear qualities to his game and Pivac knows this, bringing him in during the 2020 autumn series and handing him the No. 9 jersey for the England clash.
The 32-year-old (circled, right) is vastly experienced with almost 240 first-class games under his belt but he is as fit as ever.
He’s scored two tries in his last two starts for Cardiff and has been buzzing around the field, despite being on the losing side, zipping the ball away from breakdowns.
He can also kick off both feet, which is not to be sniffed at.
After another impressive performance against Munster at the weekend, it’s tough to shake the idea that he’s done as much as his namesake Tomos to impress this year.
Back in the Wales frame for the summer tour? Maybe.
Unheralded? Certainly.
Rhys Carre
Since his shock emergence on the Test scene in 2019, Carre has been afforded the patience of being deemed a work-in-progress.
A prop not in the traditional mould, Carre is immensely talented around the field and has ball-handling skills that belie his position.
However, if there has been a workon, it has surely come at the set-piece, where he has often been accused of not performing the traditional roles of a front-row forward as well as he might.
There have also been questions over whether he has used his sizeable frame to dent defences in the destructive nature that he should. Well, the last few weeks have seen suggestions that things are moving in the right direction. The scrummaging is still a little hit and miss, but Carre is charging over the gainline more regularly now. In the last three matches there have been notable gainlinebusting carries and some have led to tries. More of this is what will be required, but it seems like he is finally starting to deliver on the promise he showed in the early part of his career. Tighten up his work at the set-piece and he may well give Pivac something to think about in South Africa. However, if there is a weakness at the set-piece, it will certainly be exposed against the Springboks.
Morgan Morris
The Ospreys back-rower really impressed in 2020 and threw himself into the conversation for Wales selection.
At the time he was drawing comparisons to Steffon Armitage from his own head coach and it seemed he was having a significant impact in every game he played.
Things then tailed off a little with injuries playing their part and the Ospreys generally struggling at times.
But more recently he has been proving his worth again, evidenced by his hat-trick of tries against the Dragons on Sunday.
The No. 8 has proven to be an incredibly difficult man to stop in the close exchanges and he is dynamic off the back of scrums. Rarely does he get halted on the gainline and that is an invaluable trait to have.
Is he back in the Wales conversation? Wayne Pivac will surely be intrigued at the very least.
Shoutout for Griffiths and Morgan
Jac Morgan and Ollie Griffiths both deserve a mention here.
The former had more influence on the game compared to his performance against the Scarlets, which was relatively understated by his standards.
Here, though, he topped the tackle stats for his team – like Griffiths did for his – and plundered three turnovers in the second half of the match, which aided the Ospreys’ cause as they recovered from an early deficit.
Griffiths’s performance was praiseworthy, especially given he had just returned from an injury that was initially expected to end his season.
That he is even back on the field this term is a surprise.
LOSERS The WRU
It has not been a comfortable week for the game’s governing body in Wales. The leaking of the Oakwell report, and its recommendation that a region be cut, led to outrage among fans and pundits alike.
Columnists on national newspapers were queueing up to join the criticism that has been levelled at the WRU from closer to home in recent weeks and when they are taking notice, it is usually a sign that things are going particularly badly.
The apparent inactivity, or at least the approach of ‘things are happening but we can’t tell you what’, has not aided their cause.
We’re told that work is going on to formulate a plan to get Welsh rugby out of its current mess but it is long overdue.
Dragons boss Dean Ryan was moved to say that we have been waiting years for it.
The Welsh Rugby Union are getting it from all angles and there is little sign that things are going to let up until we see some action.
The Scarlets
Dwayne Peel’s side have been the front-runners to win the Welsh Shield – and more importantly secure a place in the Champions Cup next season – for quite some time.
But their dodgy form of late has seen them lose control and their fate is no longer in their hands.
With just one game remaining, the Ospreys have seized the initiative with bonus-point wins over the Scarlets themselves and the Dragons in recent weeks.
It all means that if the Ospreys match the Scarlets’ result in the final game of the season, then Toby Booth’s side will be joining Europe’s elite next term, with the Scarlets going into the Challenge Cup.
All is not lost, but that it has come to this for the Scarlets is deeply frustrating.