Cardiff Blues can pass French test, says Wilson
CARDIFF Blues will be revved up to take on Conrad Smith and company when they face Pau on Saturday at the Arms Park in the semi-finals of Europe’s Challenge Cup.
That’s the message from out-going Blues coach Danny Wilson as they prepare for their most important match since beating Toulon’s allstars in a thrilling final in the tournament eight years ago.
Double World Cup winners Smith and Colin Slade, fellow New Zealander Benson Stanley and breakdown king Steffon Armitage head a cast of big names at French Top 14 club Pau.
But Wilson, who leaves to join ex-Blues boss and former Wales captain Dai Young at Aviva Premiership club Wasps next season, isn’t concerned by the challenge facing the Blues.
“With Champions Cup qualification in the bag for next season we can really focus on a home semifinal with Pau and a chance of playing in a final in Bilbao,” he said.
“We respect the opposition we are playing.
“It’s a star-studded side but our form over the last three months has been right up there and we can be confident.
“To get to this stage of the season and still be in the hunt for a trophy and having qualified for Champions Cup is a great achievement.
“The opposition we are facing is very strong but, hopefully, the Arms Park will be packed out and the atmosphere will be like it is for derbies.
“They have got some quality names in Smith, Slade, Armitage and Stanley, and it should make for a great occasion. I would be very surprised if they don’t come over here fully loaded. We have got to beat the best they have got available, but we have beaten some massive sides already this season.”
Blues skipper Gethin Jenkins says he’s fit following his recovery from injury, but fellow Wales star, Kristian Dacey, has to pass a fitness test.
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THE Principality Premiership is poised to go through more seismic changes in the next couple of seasons.
The sponsors are due to end their 13-year backing of the Welsh club game with the independent building society focusing on backing the National Youth Leagues.
And in the major revamp of the semi-professional game in Wales, the Premiership is in line to be cut from 16 to 12 clubs from the start of the 2019-20 campaign.
It’s the latest in a history of sweeping changes the Premier Division has gone through since its inception in the 1990/91 season.
But what of those clubs that made up the first year of the Premier Division.
Some, too, have had something of chequered history in the intervening 27 years.
Here’s what has happened to the original 10 members of the 1990/91 campaign.
NEATH
WERE the first winners of the Premier silverware when the Welsh All Blacks were in their pomp.
It was always a daunting trip to The Gnoll with renowned hard men like Brian Williams, Kevin Phillips, John Davies and Phil Pugh in the side.
Grabbed the title again in 1996 and five more times in the next decade.
But the glory years seem a lifetime ago and the club have had some troubled seasons both on and off the pitch. They are currently bottom of the Premiership with more coaching changes implemented this term.
BRIDGEND
THEIR best-placed finish in the 1990s came in the first year when the Brewery Field outfit ended up fourth alongside arch rivals Cardiff in the table.
They would win the WRU National League crown in 2003 before the game went regional that summer, but have had a couple of seasons in Division One West before earning promotion back to the top flight in 2011.
They, too, are struggling to set the Premiership alight this season being 13th in the 16-club division.
PONTYPOOL
THE giants of the game may have been runners-up in the 1991 WRU Challenge Cup, but the 10-time unofficial Welsh club champions have never lifted the Premier title.
They are striving to get back to the top flight of the Welsh club game having won back-to-back WRU National Championship crowns, but the three-year ring fencing of the Premiership, means they’re going to have to wait a little longer before completing their phoenix-style rise from the ashes.
PONTYPRIDD
THE Sardis Road side have never been out of the top level of the Welsh club game since the first year of the Premier Division.
They consistently finished in the top five before a first title arrived in 1997.
The last eight years has seen a procession of Premier Division silverware travel up the valley.
But they, too, are facing a fight to rekindle the glory years with the emergence of Merthyr further up the A470.
GLAMORGAN WANDERERS
WITH the WRU basing the formation of the first Premier Division on results from the previous three seasons, the Ely Memorial Ground side made it, while the likes of Newport, Aberavon, Maesteg and Ebbw Vale didn’t.
The side that can count Sam Warburton and Josh Navidi as former players also fell on lean times, but are currently second in Division One East Central, four points behind Ystrad Rhondda.
CARDIFF
THE Blue & Blacks could only manage a fourth-place finish in ‘91, but the season did involve some highlights, however, such as beating league runners-up Llanelli 43–0 at the Arms Park and champions Neath 18-4 away in the last game of the season.
Their next league finish was ninth, which would have led to their relegation, but the WRU decided mid-season to switch to a 12-team Premiership, therefore saving Cardiff and Maesteg from relegation.
In 1995, they lifted the silverware and added to that in 2000 and ‘09.
They currently sit in sixth spot in the Premiership.
NEWBRIDGE
WHILE the likes of local rivals Newport and Ebbw Vale missed out on the Premier Division, the Welfare Ground side didn’t.
They had the likes of Welsh internationals Andy Allen and Kenny Waters to the fore before the former headed to Rodney Parade to join Newport.
It’s been a slog in recent years for them and continues to be in the WRU Championship where they’re currently fifth, but 50 points adrift of champions Pontypool.
ABERTILLERY
ANOTHER surprise package that made it to the Premier in its first season.
It was a short stay at the top table and the nadir of the famous old club came when they collapsed nearly two decades ago and they later reformed with clubhouse cohabitants Blaenau Gwent to be called Abertillery BG.
Starting afresh in the league’s bottom division, Abertillery BG worked their way up to Division One East with a squad including the club’s youth and junior products.
But they face relegation back to Division Two this summer, being rock bottom of the One East table.
LLANELLI
THE west Wales titans were runnersup in the inaugural season, but would go on to lift the first of four titles in 1993, though the last came back in 2011.
The late 1990s and early years of the noughties also produced many Welsh internationals including Rupert Moon, Scott Quinnell and Stephen Jones. It’s been hard going in the Premiership this season with the club down in 12th place.
SWANSEA
THE 1990s saw success for the club, including being league champions on four occasions (1991/92, 1993/94, 1997/98 and 2000/01).
This period also included disputes with the WRU over the way the league structure was being run following rugby union’s move to being a professional game, which culminated in the club’s boycott of the 1998/99 league season, in what was referred to as the ‘rebel’ season.
In 2014, the All Whites were relegated from the Welsh Premier on the final day of the season when, despite beating Neath at St Helens, a bonus point for Aberavon sent Swansea into the Championship.
In their first season Swansea missed out on promotion back to the Premiership, finishing in second place overall, but were one of four clubs to achieve three-year ringfencing in the Premiership when promoted in the summer of 2016.