Christmas Crackers
Year in, year out, the highlight of the Welsh rugby calendar for many fans is the Christmas derbies.
There’s never any love lost between the four teams, particularly in the battle for the Loughor bridge between Scarlets and Ospreys, and the four games over the Christmas period always manage to pack an almighty punch. Not always the prettiest games, they are nevertheless hugely physical contests and this year proved to be no exception with four Christmas crackers taking place across Wales.
What stood out this Christmas more than any other in recent memory was the teams’ desire to really crank it up and play some running rugby. They went out to win, rather than going out ‘not to lose’. Scarlets in particular showed some incredible skill at times – yet failed to win either of their sensational Christmas fixtures.
Post New Year games, I did a little number-crunching and put together this cumulative scoreline of Winners v Losers in the Christmas derbies; effectively Ospreys & Blues v Scarlets & Dragons:
Winners 89 – 80 Losers
With a total winning margin of nine points over four games, it’s plain to see that the regions provided us with a great advert for Welsh rugby in front of some fantastic crowds. The ‘down-the-road’ matches on Boxing Day always bring in great crowds, but Cardiff Arms Park was also bouncing on New Year’s Day when it played host to the visiting Scarlets side. This was fantastic to see, and Cardiff’s new-found form carried them through two impressive displays and they managed two vital wins.
Welsh rugby really needs to build on this. As wonderful as it is to see good crowd sizes over the Christmas period, it is so important to carry through this momentum into 2016. The audience is there – it just needs that extra bit of encouragement, and that extra bit of hard graft on the pitch in order to keep them coming through the gates. The teams rose to the challenge over Christmas, and at times showed us a brand of rugby that we haven’t seen in a long time. This has set the benchmark for the rest of the season. No half-measures. No slow-burners. It’s time to get back out there this weekend and rack up more wins. The PRO12 needs it.
The Grassroots
Adverse weather conditions over the New Year meant postponement for a string of matches at grassroots level, most notably two games in the Principality Premiership: Pontypridd v Newport and Cross Keys v Bedwas.
Llanelli, on the other hand, managed what the Scarlets couldn’t, and secured an impressive win against Cardiff in a high-scoring match which finished 32-40. They’ll have their work cut-out for them when they play Cross Keys next weekend, who have had a couple of weeks’ rest and currently sit at fourth in the table.
Of the few games that took place in the Swalec Championship last weekend, the most eye-catching scoreline was Merthyr RFC’s 55-13 win over Cardiff Met RFC, keeping them way out in front at the top of the table with an incredibly impressive 15 wins out of 16 matches.
Moment of the week: Alex Cuthbert not receiving a yellow card for his clumsy slap forward of the ball in the Cardiff v Scarlets derby. It was a pivotal point in the game, and consistency should’ve meant that Alex would be having a ten-minute rest on the sideline.
He didn’t, and instead went on to score the winning try for the men from the capital!
Tweet of the week: This week’s offering is from Welsh referee Nigel Owens. Happy New Year!
Blwyddyn newydd dda I chi gyd. Pob hwyl a iechyd am y flwyddyn i ddod.
— Nigel Owens (@Nigelrefowens) December 31, 2015
The rumour mill: Leigh Halfpenny’s future is yet to be announced. Rumour has it that he could be remaining in France, but anything is still possible.
By Daniel Jenkins
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Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
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Moment of the week – yep, you picked a contentious one. To add some Cardiff biased-balance I think a pivotal moment earlier in the match was the Blues rolling maul to the Llan line. Try nailed on, Llan pull it down, instant yellow card. Reset again for a rolling maul off the next lineout. Llan do the same – so this must be another card and a pen try, right? Wrong, it’s neither. Whitehouse showed no bottle or sense – he painted himself into corners he then danced inconsistently out of. 1st maul offence = yellow card, 2nd maul offence doesn’t. 1st delib knock on = yellow card, 2nd one doesn’t. He was pretty clueless in that match, for both sides, so for any Llan fan to even think the Cuthbert incident was the cause of their loss would be a pretty large delusion. I was more annoyed with the Blues for a) gifting Llan their 1st two tries b) not being down the other end when Llan were down to 14 men and c) kicking the ball at Llan with 2 mins to play and only a 2 pt margin in the game. Thank the lord Llan seem to have forgotten what a drop goal is.
I’m still buzzing from the xmas period – a big shot in the arm for Welsh pro rugby. I had a friend who couldn’t even get a ticket for the Car v Llan game, it’s been an age since people were unable to get tickets. I agree that what happens next will be interesting but we must not let the inevitable drop in attendances (we will have less away fans, less exciting fixtures, a disjointed season and some people will be saving for their 6Ns trips) lead to a load of gloomy summaries and predictions. I believe the core support will keep improving, some of those who attended these will come again due to the excellent rugby and great atmosphere, but it will still be a long process to get CAP regularly hitting 10K+ again. One thing to mention here are the extremely exciting plans for CAP development which would give us a world class stadium and some added spending power.
Hi, thanks for commenting! My apologies, I meant to post sooner. A couple of great results for Cardiff over Christmas. And you’re absolutely right, it was the injection of energy that Welsh rugby needed, and fantastic to see good crowd sizes!.It’s a shame that the Munster game was Postponed this weekend.