Grace to savour: league lit up by electric Welsh wing sensation
IT’S becoming an annual tradition that Wales’s professional teams should have the weekend off when the Heineken Champions Cup semifinals are played out.
This year there was no Welsh involvement in the European Challenge Cup last-four clashes, either.
The reasons are well documented, ranging from a lack of money compared with their rivals to the heavy demands from Test rugby on a small number of sides causing huge disruption at key stages of the season.
Whatever, there were still Welsh winners as well as losers over the bank holiday weekend and during the runup.
We draw them together...
WINNERS JONAH HOLMES
A coach backing his own players for a national squad call is a bit of a dogbites-man story rather than a mantakes-a-chunk-out-of-mutt line – not something that’s going to make anyone spring out of his or her seat and say: “Wow, have you read this?”
Still, it’s worth recording that Jonah Holmes has received significant support from his team boss at the Dragons, Dean Ryan.
Because the back-three man absolutely deserves it.
Somewhat forgotten by Wales, with just one start in more than two years, he’s been excellent of late, scoring eight tries in his last seven games and looking a Test player to his bootlaces.
Unsurprisingly, Ryan believes Wayne Pivac should assess him in the internationals which Wales are set to play in the coming months.
“Jonah has been working really hard in the background and this summer is probably the best chance to look at a wider group of players,” said the Englishman in an interview with the South Wales Argus.
“He is physical and fast, and that’s what you need. Wales have some decent wingers but if people are going to be away then I think he will definitely be somebody to discuss.”
No arguments there.
REGAN GRACE
The free-scoring Welsh wing looks set to extend his contract with Super League club St Helens.
Some of his scores in rugby league have been beyond sensational. The hat-trick he scored against Leeds last August must be one of the most spectacular scored by anyone in either code. Any of the scores could have fitted nicely into a try-of-theseason competition.
Now The Rugby Paper reports that the Port Talbot product has agreed a new deal until the end of next year.
It also says that there was interest from at least one Welsh region and several English Premiership clubs.
But Grace appears happy where he is.
He has a World Cup to look forward to this autumn and he’s playing for an outstanding team.
At 24, he still has time on his side to consider other options if that’s what he wants.
RICHARD HIBBARD
It was former England international John Scott who once reckoned the key for clubs in the professional age would be to recruit players who offered value for money.
Quite what he’d make of the current situation whereby some players in Wales seem to play more for the national team than anyone else, we do not know.
It is, of course, ruinous to the silverware hopes of the Welsh professional sides, who don’t have the financial resources to carry huge talent-laden squads which might enable them to seriously compete in the absence of their front-liners. Anyway, let’s cut to someone who has offered his team value for money this season. Richard Hibbard (circled, below) has been quite the unsung sort over a campaign which has seen him play 18 times for the Dragons. He’s put in close on 100 tackles across 16 league games, while he remains a purposeful carrier and his line-out work has been accurate. When he reached his 50th appearance for the region, against Connacht in February, he marked the occasion with a try hat-trick. He’s also helped mentor younger players coming through. His reward is a new contract at the age of 37. It will keep him going at Rodney Parade until a few months short of his 39th birthday. There was also another plus on Saturday when the Lions Test hooker from 2013 had his iconic blond locks shaved off in support of charity. Dragons team-mate Greg Bateman had opened up in 2019 about his own battles with depression and is now supporting various mental health initiatives through his craft beer business, People’s Captain. Bateman is trying to raise £1million, and Hibbard agreed to do his bit in pursuit of the target. Commendable, then, thoroughly commendable. Hibbard once said: “I’m not really a talker, I’m a doer.” Of late he’s been doing a lot of things that are to his credit.
OSPREYS
They haven’t confirmed anything yet, but two more signings on the horizon will further boost their squad.
Highlanders pair Michael Collins – who is Wales-qualified thanks to a grandfather from Llanelli – and Jack Regan are on their way for next season.
Utility back Collins, in particular, could be a useful acquisition, bringing with him a lot of experience, quality, versatility – he can play full-back, centre or wing – and leadership, with the 27-year-old having led Otago.
Regan is coming in to bolster second-row stocks with Alun Wyn Jones and Adam Beard set to be on Test duty for significant chunks of next term and the fast-improving Rhys Davies another possibility for a Wales call
The thinking is that Irishman Regan will help ensure the Ospreys are not stretched to breaking point in a key area.
Throw Jac Morgan and Tomas Francis into the mix for 2021-22, plus Osian Knott and Ben Warren, and the Liberty Stadium team look to be building nicely.
ASHTON HEWITT
He’s had a good year, on and off the pitch, and now he’s spoken well about the sport boycott of social media, doubting how much impact it will have on the platforms but suggesting media coverage has highlighted the problems more generally.
“My only concern with it is the length of the boycott, the number of people involved in the boycott, I am not sure how much impact that will have on these platforms,” Hewitt said.
“Coming together as a collective is hugely positive and it encourages conversations. That’s amazing.
“But in terms of actually hitting these social media platforms where it hurts, to make sure that they start to do something about online abuse and racial abuse, I am not sure how effective it will be in forcing their hand.”
He’s right.
The media coverage shines a light on the darker side of social media.
Sadly, it won’t go away, fourday boycott or no four-day boycott.
So much has been said in recent weeks and months on the matter; meantime, the poisonous stuff continues apace.
Whatever the companies that own these platforms are doing, it’s not enough.
LOSERS TAULUPE FALETAU AND RHYS PRIESTLAND
They’ve both had fine seasons – Faletau with club and country, Priestland just in the colours of Bath.
But there won’t be silverware to round it off.
Bath’s defeat by Montpellier on Saturday evening meant their European Challenge Cup trophy bid failed at the semi-final stage.
Despite spending much of the game camped in their French opponents’ 22, they couldn’t translate the pressure into points. Possibly, they could still be there now without adding to their early try from hooker Tom Dunn.
The English club missed the injured Priestland acutely as they repeatedly ran in the visitors’ brick-wall defence.
For while the 34-year-old doesn’t have a dazzling running game himself, he is a thinker whose brain, passing skills and clever decision-making allow him to open defences.
Faletau did his best, playing at blindside flanker. He fronted up in defence, making 14 tackles, and there were some strong carries.
But with the English team’s line-out a shambles – at times it seemed as if the French were remote-controlling the home setpiece, with eight Bath throws going haywire – and Montpellier tackling as if their lives depended on it, the spoils deservedly went to the visitors.
A big shame for Bath’s two Welshmen.
PRO16
It seems Pieter-steph Du Toit, World Rugby’s player of the year for 2019, will not be rocking up at Rodney Parade or the Arms Park or anywhere else in the projected Guinness PRO16 any time soon.
Reports from South Africa suggest the Stormers back-rower is off to Japan later this year to pursue a lucrative deal with Toyota Verblitz.
The South African teams still have plenty of outstanding players, of course.
But one of the world’s best will not be among them.
By any standard, that’s a bit of a blow to the new competition before it even starts.