The latest rugby news and headlines from Wales and beyond
Here are your rugby evening headlines for Monday, April 20.
Ospreys wing defends actions
Wales international Luke Morgan has defended his actions in the wake of abuse from South African fans following his controversial tackle on Sharks player Ethan Hooker in Saturday’s 21-17 win for the Ospreys.
The winger leapt after Hooker as he dived over the line, landing on top of the South Africa international, who was later confirmed to have dislocated his shoulder in the incident.
Sharks coach JP Pietersen was unhappy about the challenge and Morgan has since been bombarded with abuse by South African fans on social media.
Pietersen said after the game: “After scoring a try, the rules say you are not supposed to dive on a player and rules are there to protect players and sadly that did not happen.
“He dislocated his shoulder. He is a massive presence for us and to lose him after the first half was very disappointing and frustrating.”
The South African report one angry fan targeting Morgan on Instagram in the aftermath, saying: “You should be banned for as long as Ethan Hooker is out. Scumbag.”
Morgan responded: “And you should go bore someone else with a silly little comment like that.”
Another commented: “Falling on a player after he was clearly going to score is pure filth. Intended to hurt and succeeded. Congrats.”
Morgan then replied with a post that has since been deleted, stating: “He clearly hasn’t scored until the ball is grounded, therefore because the ball wasn’t grounded means the ball is still in play and I am fully legal to make that tackle so you might want to think again about that one.”
Liam Williams opens up on future
Former Wales full-back Liam Williams has spoken about his future plans following his retirement earlier this season.
The British and Irish Lion hung up his boots back in March, with the 35-year-old recently helping his former club Scarlets with coaching some of their young players.
Interim director of rugby Nigel Davies confirmed last week that Williams had been present at training, helping academy product Callum Woolley with his development.
Williams was present at Parc y Scarlets on the weekend, as the Llanelli side celebrated his decorated career.
And, in an interview with Premier Sports, Williams explained what he hopes to do after finishing playing.
“I spoke to Nige a couple of weeks ago, saying I was going to be hanging the boots up and I’d like to come back and do a bit of coaching,” he said.
“He said ‘yeah, that’s great’. To be back here is great. That would be the plan, get my foot in the door and we’ll see where we end up.”
Five-try star credits Wales experience
Gabriel Hamer-Webb credited his maiden Six Nations campaign with helping to raise his game after he scored five tries for Leicester Tigers on the weekend.
The former Cardiff wing was the standout performer for Tigers in their 62-3 win over Newcastle Red Bulls. Hamer-Webb’s day could have been even better, narrowly missing out on a sixth try late on.
The five-try performance was the fourth straight game that Hamer-Webb has scored in – making it eight in five matches following the Six Nations for the 25-year-old.
Prior to his Wales call-up, Hamer-Webb had managed just one try in eight matches for new club Leicester.
And Hamer-Webb, who made his Test debut against Scotland earlier this year, said being in the international environment has helped his game as he finds himself in rich try-scoring form.
“I’m really finding my feet, my confidence is there,” he said. “I think going away with Wales has pushed that, I’ve seen that international standard of how to do things and I hope I can carry on doing that.
“We wanted to be relentless throughout, we didn’t want to let the scoreboard change what we were doing, we didn’t want to get loose. The message every time we got into that huddle was stick to what we do, stick to our basics, and we’ll get over the line every time.
“We made sure that we kept going and going.”
Welsh club captain ready for season-defining weeks
Cardiff captain Liam Belcher praised the influence of his side’s replacements after the remarkable late fightback to beat the Scarlets.
Having trailed deep into the second half, Cardiff appeared destined for defeat before a dramatic final 10 minutes saw them overturn a 24-7 deficit to secure a vital derby win.
“You talk about fight in this squad, and I don’t think you can ever question that, especially after what we showed today,” Belcher explained.
“It probably was the first yellow card for them that caused the shift in momentum. It was a big moment, especially when we got a try from it. But I can’t fault the boys coming off the bench. Talk about impact – every single one of them came into that game and won it for us.”
The victory is crucial to their play-off hopes, with Cardiff rising from ninth to seventh position in the table in a matter of minutes. The late try was also Cardiff’s fourth of the match, clinching a precious bonus point.
“We know it’s in our hands now,” Belcher added. “We’ve just got to focus on our games and hopefully we’ll make it. It’s not like last year where we were relying on other results.
“There are still three games left, so it’s about going game by game and seeing what happens from there.”
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