Posted by It’s that time of year again, ladies and gentlemen, to get the glad rags on and settle down for a few minutes in front of your phone, tablet or laptop in order to enjoy the self-proclaimed prestigious Cardiff Rugby Life Awards 2022/23.
There’s no doubting that it was a rollercoaster season for the Blue and Blacks, with plenty of lows along the way, but with as many highs there is some stiff competition for the non-existent trophies this year giving the judging panel a headache along the way.
Let’s take a look at who the winners are, and if you don’t agree feel free to keep those thoughts to yourself!
Most Improved Player
With the usual lack of availability of senior internationals, plus a number of serious injuries to key individuals, the 22/23 campaign has been a breakout one for quite a few players in the Cardiff squad. As such, the shortlist for this award is a very strong one.
Corey Domachowski kicked on again, Liam Belcher had his best campaign in a Blue and Black jersey so far, Max Llewellyn shook off injuries to have his breakthrough year, and Ben Thomas was very impressive after his switch to full-back.
The winner though is Keiron Assiratti, a well deserved victor after a 12-month turnaround that has seen him go from just four first team appearances in 2021/22 – two of those as a cover hooker – to playing all 12 of the games after the turn of the calendar year this season and forcing his way into Wales’ pre-World Cup training squad.
Jumping ahead of Will Davies-King in the tighthead depth chart at the Arms Park, the 25-year-old showed off a maturity to his scrummaging and combined that with the carrying and breakdown work that we knew he possessed to become a cornerstone of the pack down the stretch. With Dillon Lewis and Dmitri Arhip departing, Assiratti will be a key man for Cardiff going forward.
Young Player of the Year
In a similar fashion to last year, where Theo Cabango was the standout winner of the award for the best U23 player at the club, there is a pretty clear victor this season.
A word for Teddy Williams, who continually impressed off the bench between December through to the end of the Six Nations before looking assured in the starting XV in big games against Sale and Benetton, but the winner is the man with the X Factor at outside centre, Mason Grady.
The 21-year-old had a tough start to the season, with doubts raised after performances against Glasgow and Lions over whether being so physically dominant at age grade level may make the transition to senior professional rugby difficult. However, some clever game time management from the coaches allowed him to build his game gradually until he was ready to make his mark after the turn of the calendar year.
Starting all games he was available for from mid-January, Grady began displaying much greater vision and game awareness to hit weak shoulders and gaps in the defence, with his pace and power causing opposition sides all sorts of problems, while his own defensive capabilities have continued to steadily improve as he grows in confidence.
Best Performance
Now this one is a tricky one as, despite some really disappointing results over the course of the season, Cardiff have also turned out some of the best performances we have seen for many years during this campaign.
Beating reigning United Rugby Championship champions Stormers at home in October and the dismantling of Ospreys at Judgement Day were both brilliant tactical showings to out-maneouvre much bigger and more physical teams, while the 0-35 whitewash of the Sharks in Durban back in November was a simply stunning performance and result.
Remarkably though, beating a South African side to nil on their own turf does not win the Best Performance award this season, and that is because the 28-27 victory over Sale Sharks in April will be remembered at the Arms Park for many years to come.
After the week in which Peter Thomas passed away, and all the accompanying emotions that came with that including a touching memorial for him just ahead of kick-off, for the Blue and Blacks to produce that showing against a side who were sitting second of the Gallagher Premiership at the time was a special, special moment in the history of the club.
Try of the Season
Now this award is a trickier one as although Cardiff have scored a decent number of tries this season, there is not particularly a standout candidate for the best of those scores.
As ever some sharp first phase tries have been scored, with Josh Adams getting on the end of a couple against Sale and Brive, respectively, while Mason Grady’s individual effort against Benetton was an eye-catcher, and there were some excellent team scores with Corey Domachowski finishing a good move v Sale, Aled Summerhill rounding off a counter attack against Ulster, and Rhys Carre’s offload putting Tomos Williams away at Scarlets.
My try of the season came midway through October though as Dragons arrived at the Arms Park on a dry autumn evening. With 72 minutes on the clock a Jarrod Evans penalty had made the score 24-14 but a try bonus point was still up for grabs.
Rhys Priestland took the resulting kick-off and found Evans on his right who, in his trademark jinking style, carried towards the right touchling and stepped hard off his right foot, brushing a flailing tackler off and heading upfield. A second right foot step saw off one cover defender before a second was drawn and Thomas Young popped up on the left shoulder to speed under the posts from halfway. Gwych!
Special Recognition
It seems very unworthy to present the Cardiff Rugby Life Special Recognition Award to a man as great as Peter Thomas, but there was no way it was possible to hold these awards this summer without recognising his contribution to the club.
So much was written by myself and many others at the time of his passing that summed him up as a man, a businessman, and as a rugby man, but his contribution in all areas is so overwhelming that the tributes can not be repeated enough.
Peter was Cardiff Rugby, whether as a player, supporter, chairman, president or benefactor, he was the life and soul of the club for so many years and his presence will be missed greatly, but not more than the presence he had as a philanthropist and family man where he was so loved by so many.
His legacy will live on purely by the club existing, which says so much for what he has given the Blue and Blacks, but also in the memories of the great nights we have had at the Arms Park and further afield due to him, and with the South Stand being renamed for him at our iconic home. Peter Thomas deserves the the most special of recognitions.
Player of the Year
And so we come to the final award, the big one, as I crown the (actually not very) coveted Cardiff Rugby Life Player of the Year for the 2022/23 season.
With the aforementioned injuries and international call-ups, plus the big gaps between fixture blocks due to the odd way the rugby calendar currently is, there are actually very few players who have put in a full season worth of rugby with the Blue and Blacks.
Rhys Carre was excellent in the first half of the season while Corey Domachowski took on the form loosehead role in the second half, Taulupe Faletau, Josh Adams and Tomos Williams were all superb when they weren’t away with the national team, Lloyd Williams stood out when stepping in for Tomos, and Rey Lee-Lo was having another excellent campaign before injury struck.
In the end though it comes down to two men for me, both of whom missed the middle part of the campaign, but were standout performers either side of those spells on the sidelines.
James Botham had a fantastic year. Largely playing on the blindside he got through a huge amount of the non-glamour work at the breakdown on both sides of the ball, carrying in the wider channels and improving his lineout jumping. However, his back row partner Thomas Young on the openside is the man who scoops the imaginary trophy.
His 199 tackles made were second in the URC, while he came away as the league’s Turnover King with 17, but adding to that were nine line breaks and eight tries as his engine and incredible turn of pace singled him out as a genuine game changer at key moments of big games. It’s no surprise that games where he was particularly on song, i.e Sharks away and Ospreys at Judgement Day, were games where Cardiff won comfortably.
Desperately unlucky, along with Botham, to miss out on the Wales pre-World Cup squad he can still be proud of a terrific first season back in Blue and Black, with hopefully many more to come. Thomas Young is the 2022/23 Cardiff Rugby Life Player of the Year.
Cardiff Rugby Life 