The latest rugby news and headlines from Wales and beyond
Here are your rugby evening headlines for Sunday, April 26.
Dragons sign impressive winger
The Dragons have signed RGC wing Caio Parry ahead of next season, following a fine season in Super Rygbi Cymru.
Parry has been one of the league’s most potent players, crossing for 14 tries in 19 matches this season.
The 20-year-old also ranks highly for defenders beaten and linebreaks, while he’s also turned out for GB 7s in Rugby Europe Championship.
After RGC’s SRC hopes were ended with a quarter-final loss against Llandovery on the weekend, their coach Jon Callard confirmed the Dragons were signing Parry for next season.
“Caio Parry is going to go on to the Dragons, which is fantastic for us,” said Callard to S4C.
Welsh boss ‘delighted’ after narrowly missing out on scalp
Scarlets interim director of rugby Nigel Davies says he is delighted with the players after they came close to knocking over play-off-chasing Bulls in Llanelli.
A strong display against the Springbok-laden Bulls nearly produced a win for the west Walians, only for the boot of Handre Pollard to deny them. Even so, Davies was pleased with what he saw.
“At this level, the margins are narrow and we are working hard to make sure we are on the right side of these victories,” he said.
“We are getting there, there were a couple of key moments in the game, but overall I am just delighted with the players; I thought they were brave out there, they kept on going, we executed the gameplan really well which gave us an opportunity to win the game. I am really, really pleased with the way the boys reacted to last week.”
Davies added: “In the main, I thought we managed the game well – maybe we didn’t switch to a different type of gameplan when they were down to 13, the scrum at the end was another moment – but that is how it goes sometimes, particularly when you are a side still looking to find its feet. We are getting close and that was a real statement of intent to where this team is going.
“We are moving forward, we are gradually knocking down all the things we are talking about, we have a real clear plan moving forward and the boys are starting to execute on the field. There is a lot of hope to take from that performance.”
Northampton unhappy despite late win
Northampton Saints director of rugby Phil Dowson was unhappy with their performance against Bath, despite winning 41-38 at Franklin’s Gardens.
Bath rested a number of players for their top of the table Prem clash, with one eye on a European semi-final against Bordeaux-Begles next week.
As such, celebrations were muted when Northampton did sneak over the line late on.
“We weren’t getting through anything we wanted to execute,” said Dowson.
“We stopped playing a little bit, got into lots of box kick battles, which definitely suits Bath, and I thought their back three were excellent, in terms of dealing with those and getting Bath on the front foot.
“Defensively, we weren’t at it, particularly that part of our game was again poor, so (defence coach) Lee Radford is particularly annoyed.
“Those elements feed into how we want to attack and play, and I think some of our decision making was a bit restricted in the second half.”
Follow all of our channels to ensure you stay up to date with the latest Welsh rugby news. Sign up to our free daily newsletter here and our WhatsApp channel here for all the breaking news.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login