View from the South Terrace: Dragons (H)

After five weeks without a game there was a feeling of starting all over again for Cardiff on Saturday as the Dragons were welcomed to the Arms Park for a Welsh derby in the United Rugby Championship.

There were a number of players coming back from a tough block of international games with Cymru, some who had found the rest beneficial, and others itching to get back out on the plastic turf, and then to add to that feeling of starting over the Blue and Blacks produced a performance than inspired a serious sense of déjà vu.

Against Zebre in round one of the 2024/25 campaign Matt Sherratt’s side had managed to secure a home bonus-point win but in less than convincing circumstances. There were flashes of quality which were enough to put away one of the worst teams in the league, but plenty of room for improvement with better quality opposition to come.

Across the first 20 minutes against the Dragons it was a similar story. Cardiff struggled to recover kicks, couldn’t get a grip on possession and territory, and too regularly fell foul of the refereeing to establish any sort of hold on proceedings. Were it not for the toblerone boot of Angus O’Brien there could have been a bit of a mountain to climb.

As it was the Blue and Blacks were lucky that the opposition were not up to the standard required to convert pressure into points, and once we managed to get going our quality told with some dominant scrum and maul work, improving accuracy through midfield and cutting edge in the redzone.

The 10 minutes after half-time were particularly encouraging, exactly what a Cardiff side coached by Jockey should be. High-tempo, accurate, physical when required but just too athletic and dynamic for the opposition to keep up with on a dry enough night and with the Arms Park’s artificial surface. The two-phase move finished by Callum Sheedy’s try was the evening’s highlight.

Perhaps equally as concerning as the slow start though was the tepid finish from the Blue and Blacks, with the home side losing a lot of control over that final quarter and allowing the Dragons to make the scoreline look somewhat more respectable, thanks in no small part to livewire scrum-half Morgan Lloyd coming off the bench.

There was too much playing in the middle third of the pitch, the level of tactical kicking dipped and the defensive intensity just fell off, not helped by some over-officious refereeing that prevented proceedings really developing any flow, and in the end Cardiff were unable to manage many elements of the game.

Individually there was a lot to like; Cam Winnett oozed class, Corey Domachowski and Alex Mann both stepped off the bench early on to put in huge shifts, Aled Davies and Callum Sheedy’s partnership at half-back continues to look more and more impressive week-on-week, and Harri Millard was electric off the left wing.

However, there needs to be serious consideration this week given to particularly how the Blue and Blacks start games in order to avoid better quality opposition getting too far ahead on the scoreboard early on and preventing any possibility of a result.

The next two weeks see Cardiff head into European action with the Challenge Cup pool stage presenting a trip to Lyon and a home tie against Cheetahs, two teams that we may not know too much about with the former potentially rotating heavily as they battle Top14 relegation and the latter having not played proper competitive rugby since the Currie Cup finished in early September.

With Jockey likely to rotate the squad somewhat there’s a chance there not to worry about the opposition too much and just play our own game, hopefully allowing us to take the field with a clear plan and get going from minute one.

As always, #TrustTheProcess