Newport Gwent Dragons vs Cardiff Blues - Match Preview
By Cardiff Blues Blog - @TheBluesLife
December 27 2015
Writer @TheBluesLife gives us his rundown on the local Welsh derby today. Best of luck to the boys today, I will be cheering them on from the terraces, I am venturing to the dark side today. Cmon lads!
Following the gruelling back-to-back games with Montpellier it's a return to Pro12 games this weekend and there's no let-up to the tough games. The festive period always throws up a serving of Welsh derbies, and this year we face Scarlets on New Year's Day at home, but first up is a trip to Rodney Parade to take on Newport.
Those matches against Montpellier will hopefully bring some much needed momentum into the league as a fantastic home win followed by a really cruel away loss should give the squad a huge boost. The confidence really must be flowing as the defence put in a massive shift and kept the French team at bay for 39 minutes of a second half barrage away from home, and the attack seems to be clicking and able to go through phases much easier.
However, as we all know, form goes straight out of the window in derby games, the only thing to carry to Newport is the passion and commitment shown over the last few weeks. There's no real form to look at from last season's meetings, when we faced off three times courtesy of a European quarter-final. After a home win on Boxing Day, we won at Rodney Parade on New Year's Day, and then lost the Challenge Cup game, although we were big-time struggling with injuries forcing Tavis Knoyle to start at centre.
Newport have had a similarly disappointing season to Cardiff, with only three league wins before an impressive home win over Munster and a double win over Conrad Smith's French team Pau. Like a lot of recent Dragons teams they have a young talented side, the difference now is the National Dual contracts keeping them at the club. However, even that isn't enough to keep star man Toby Faletau in Newport as he will be moving to Bath next summer, and isn't in the squad this week.
Danny Wilson has made three changes to the team that started the Montpellier away game, and actually, I think for the first time in about two years, I struggle to argue with any of the starting line-up. Lloyd Williams returns to scrum-half, while Josh Turnbull does the same at blindside, replacing Tavis Knoyle and Macauley Cook, while James Down starts ahead of the supposedly injured Jarrad Hoeata who doesn't even make the bench. The big team news is that Cory Allen returns to the bench as he looks to make his comeback from the leg injury suffered against Uruguay in the first World Cup game.
Cardiff team v Newport: 15 Rhys Patchell, 14 Alex Cuthbert, 13 Garyn Smith, 12 Rey Lee-Lo, 11 Tom James, 10 Jarrod Evans, 9 Lloyd Williams; 1 Gethin Jenkins (c), 2 Kristian Dacey, 3 Taufa'ao Filise, 4 Lou Reed, 5 James Down, 6 Josh Turnbull, 7 Josh Navidi, 8 Manoa Vosawai
Replacements: 16 Ethan Lewis, 17 Sam Hobbs, 18 Dillon Lewis, 19 Macauley Cook, 20 Cam Dolan, 21 Tavis Knoyle, 22 Cory Allen, 23 Dan Fish
So a very strong starting XV with options off the bench, some good form, players willing to put their bodies on the line, and a massive Welsh derby. It's got everything we need for the win, we just need to perform on the day, something that does let us down on occasion. However, this is the Danny Wilson revolution, and anything is possible, come on Cardiff!!
Stats
Cardiff record v Newport: W 16 D 0 L 9
Newport form: LWLLWLLWLLWWW
Cardiff form: WLLLLLLWLLWWL
Newport top try scorer: Sarel Pretorius (4)
Cardiff top try scorers: Tom James, Josh Navidi (5)
Newport top points scorers: Dorian Jones, Jason Tovey (74)
Cardiff top points scorer: Rhys Patchell (143)
Referee Watch
Ian Davies (WRU) - The ugly step-brother to Nigel Owens in the world of Welsh refereeing, but has improved in the last two seasons or so. Refereed the Munster away game where we lost and Jevon Groves was sent to the bin late on. Refereed the big West Country derby, Gloucester v Worcester last week.
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Makes up for the fact we got nothing from those irish games where we put in some great shifts and came away with 4 losses!
Quote:wales606
Terrible first 60 minutes, have no idea how they stole that
Really? They won because they bought patch to ten and brought fish on and because they finally won a few penalties allowing them to play the game plan that they'd started with but weren't allowed to maximise.
The drags finally got penalised for holding on which led to patch kicking it fifty metres. We won the line out and marched them over the line and the game changed in that one moment. A yellow card was a bonus.
Rarely have I witnessed such a dominant scrum be treated with such disdain by an official as I saw this afternoon. Admittedly Cardiff were far too slow to change their tactics when it was obvious that the ref wasn't going to allow them to make the most of their strengths however thankfully we did in the end. Disappointed with Jared Evans too. I thought he was really poor today.
Also we started scoring when giving it to the backs theres no need to keep it in the forwards all the time
Right about the scrum and about Evans. He might be young but real quality comes through at his age. Looks like he'll be a journeyman pro at best.
Vosawai was poor, Lelo looked ordinary......even when put through by that pass at the end and Smith looked like he was pulled out of the pub to play just before the game.
It was a win but if we perform like that there won't be many others this season.
Ian Davies atrocious, calling 'use it' and penalising against a clearly moving scrum is ridiculous, the guy doesn't know the laws!
I genuinely dire game that in recent years we would've never won, so positive there but poor kicking game and no clear game plan apart from kicking and pick and drives.
The real issue is the second rows, spent some time watching them specifically and they offer nothing. The lineouts were improved by Cook immediately and although Hoeta is slated on here, he really makes the difference at the throw in.
Everything from ruck position, running technique, defensive positioning and tackle technique of Lou Reed is poor. Think the age of our front five really caused us problems is defense.
Would like to see some more youth in the pack next week but we'll see.
The dragons were awful.
The ref was worse than aweful.
But a win is a win
As others have said a win is a win!
The reffing of the scrum was disappointing.
Our set piece; scrum, lineout and restart is the best it's been in decades. The rest is below average; but it's a start
Quote:Ben Blair's Right Peg
No idea what the ref was thinking, our scrum was dominant and moving forward. However he penalised us after telling us to 'use it' which as said in commentatory isn't a law at the scrum. Constantly the dragons pulled it down, think we were very unlucky, another day and ref would've been penalties all day long
This was a bizarre piece of reffing, we were square and marching them forward, they had sheared off and skewed around. Daves coaches shouts 'use it' and one of their back row who had illegally detached tackled Vos from a position beyond the ball. He (DC) had invented a regulation and ignored about 4 cast iron penalty offences by them!!!!!!!
Hoping for a better ref on NYD
TMO Derek Bevan.
The team from hell.