Season Preview: What constitutes success?

After a long six months of waiting for everyone at Cardiff Rugby, the 2023/24 United Rugby Championship campaign gets underway on Saturday as Benetton visit the Arms Park for a 17.15 kick-off.

The upheaval of the last 12 months in Welsh Rugby, and the last six months in the capital, have been widely written about and scrutinised but they leave us in a position of huge unknown going into the new season. Squad-wise, coaching-wise and all of that in comparison to teams around us make it very difficult to gauge exactly where the Blue and Blacks are, along with variables out of our hands being a greater factor.

Let’s start with where the squad is going into this year. There’s been a significant number of departures over the off-season, including some major experience going out the door. Kris Dacey, Kirby Myhill, Dmitri Arhip, Dillon Lewis, James Ratti, Josh Navidi, Lloyd Williams, Jarrod Evans, Rhys Priestland and Jason Harries just some of the 15 first team players who have left.

In their place recruitment has been a challenge with tightened financial belts and some big earners on the wage bill, but the likes of Ciaran Parker (London Irish), Tinus De Beer (Pumas) and Arwel Robson (Cornish Pirates) bring a new dimension to the squad either through a second chance or a first opportunity at this level.

A 40-man squad as things stand, with an Academy squad sitting below it and possibly another addition in the form of a certain hot stepping centre! It’s a noticeably young squad with just six players aged 30 or over, and is probably the most varied squad in terms of experience that we’ve ever put together.

In some areas, such as the second row, the outlook has got better if anything with Lopeti Timani now settled, Seb Davies becoming a senior member of the squad and Teddy Williams having been exposed to international rugby over the summer.

Then switching attention to a position like tighthead prop and the experience of Dmitri Arhip and international quality of Dillon Lewis departing leave a young and emerging group with Ciaran Parker likely to be a regular matchday squad member for the first time in his career, Keiron Assiratti stepping up as first choice while Will Davies-King and Rhys Litterick have a sharp learning curve.

It’s a similar story with the coaching ticket where Matt Sherratt takes on a permanent Head Coach job for the first time in his career, Richie Rees steps back up as Backs & Attack Coach and Scott Andrews is promoted to Forwards Coach, his first senior professional coaching role. They are joined by the experience of Gethin Jenkins as Defence Coach on a part-time basis.

There’s plenty of quality and, in particular, exciting potential on both the playing and coaching fronts, but the million dollar question is how that will translate to on-field performances and results, especially against the ever-strengthening Irish and South African sides, the slowly improving Scots and the permanently hyped Italian teams.

Looking at the fixture list and if Cardiff are to earn any decent results then it’s going to come this side of the Six Nations. Five Welsh derbies against opposition in similar boats to us financially and squad upheaval-wise, plus Benetton at home in round one possibly without their Italian international contingent. With a trip to Zebre, and Bulls and Stormers also to visit the Arms Park, there are point opportunities there.

From the start of the Six Nations onwards though come the tougher tests of all four Irish sides, both Scottish teams and a fortnight in South Africa ahead of Judgement Day.

If we’re putting a points target on it then 22 points from a possible 45 at the conclusion of the festive derbies would be a very good return considering the freshness of the coaching staff and the mix of the playing squad, especially with Welsh internationals who played in the Rugby World Cup having to be drip fed back into the set up.

Perhaps more important than points this season though is performance. This is year one of a rebuild, a two-to-three year plan that begins with a major reset over the off-season just gone and travels though the blooding of a significant number of young players, possible new investors and a growth of the players, staff and club as a whole towards a new era.

Expecting Cardiff to go from the chaos of the last 12 months to immediately securing results week-in, week-out is simply unrealistic. Instead we need to keep improving as a team, and even then it might not be week-on-week. There’ll be games where we collapse or are on the receiving end of a lesson, but if we can say we’re a better team at Christmas than we were in round one then it’s a successful first fixture block.

Similarly for the Six Nations period and then on to the final part of the campaign, to the point we are starting to develop consistency in performance at a notably improved level to that which we saw in October and November. Put plainly, if the Blue and Blacks are a better team at the end of the campaign then it’s a success, no matter the points on the board.

It’s a somewhat stark reminder of where the club is at the moment, and will take some mentality shifts from supporters, but it can still be an enjoyable season. Matt Sherratt has committed to playing high effort, attack-focused rugby, there’s a lot of future talent in the squad and still a sprinkling of superstar power for the big games they are available.

There’ll be times when that mindset is a hard one to stick to, but as supporters we will need to stay behind the boys otherwise things could unravel very quickly. We have our own part to play in the rebuild, and if we get it right then it could set Cardiff up for many years to come.

A cliché in the extreme, but trust the process!