Posted by When it comes to rugby in Cardiff there is plenty of history and tradition at a number of schools, as well as in the wider Cardiff Schools programme across the U11 and, now, U16 sides.
From the Ford brothers at Llanrumney High, Gerald Cordle and Nick Macleod at Bishop of Llandaff, Louie Hennessey and Harrison James out of Llanishen High, Owen Lane and Sam Warburton from Whitchurch High, Sid Judd and James Down went to Cardiff High, the Cathedral School producing Robin Sowden-Taylor and Louis Rees-Zammit, and the Welsh-language schools of Ysgol Plasmawr and Ysgol Glantaf have seeing a litany of international stars pass through their halls, there is talent aplenty.
A school with a rich history of rugby in Cardiff though is Corpus Christi – winners of the inaugural WSRU National U16 Cup in 1988, who over the past decade have seen a number of their alumni progress on to the test match arena.
Two of those, in Callum Sheedy and Ben Thomas, are now plying their trade together in the city where they grew up after Sheedy’s summer move back to the Arms Park and last Saturday in their first Welsh derby starting together at 10 & 12, they effectively ran the show for the Blue & Blacks.
Looking at the RugbyPass stats for Saturday’s game at Parc y Scarlets, Callum Sheedy had 38 touches (25 passes, 4 carries, 9 kicks) while Ben Thomas had 23 touches (13 passes, 7 carries, 3 kicks). If you chalk off the handful of touches that Sheedy would have had from covering the back field at fly-half, it’s a relatively comparative figure.
Compare that with Sam Costelow on 43 touches (29 passes, 7 carries, 7 kicks) and Johnny Williams with 18 touches (6 passes, 12 carries, 0 kicks), and the balance between the Cardiff duo is clear. They dove-tailed beautifully in and out of first receiver, alternating phases as above but also cleverly switching things up when working together on the same phase.
On both occasions here it is Sheedy taking the first pull back pass, but Thomas varies the distancing between him and his fly-half in order to manipulate the defence and open up different attacking opportunities for himself and those outside him.
In the first clip he stays narrow to Sheedy, drawing the ever spot blitzing Gareth Davies to him and then releases Cam Winnett to put the ball over the top for Iwan Stephens in space, before the second clip sees Thomas slide wider to take advantage of a slowly drifting Scarlets defence and use his carrying power to get his hands free and offload to create a line break.
Then it can also switch to allow Sheedy to stretch his legs too.
The particularly eye-catching thing about this clip is that Sheedy and Thomas don’t line up in reverse, but Aled Davies at scrum-half picks out Thomas for the first pass and Sheedy is on the move immediately to get himself into the wide.
With the Scarlets defence ball watching there is no time to adjust leaving Cardiff to create the overlap. Sheedy then has the passing quality to allow Winnett the opportunity to catch-and-pass, holding that final defender for Stephens to get away, rather than the ball going straight over to Winnett where a less creative player may go to, offering an easy drift to the defence to kill the overlap.
With Sheedy and Thomas also using each other as decoys, whether that be with the fly-half as a fake first receiver or the inside centre coming short on a crash ball line, it keeps the defenders guessing and opens up the links with Rey Lee-Lo and Cam Winnett, getting them in space and with ball-in-hand where they can inflict maximum damage.
With the dual footballers in place it was also a key element to the game management in the final quarter of proceedings in Llanelli, both in terms of their communication and organisation, and, of course, their kicking games which not only pushed the Scarlets back but ultimately led to the bonus point try.
It’s still early days for the Corpus Christi alumni playing together in the Cardiff three-quarter line, but the signs from last weekend were very promising indeed. Hopefully we will see them able to step that up and take a home game by the scruff of the neck, with defending champions Glasgow Warriors set to bring a stern test in round three.
Lots to like though!
Cardiff Rugby Life 