It’s some legacy to live up to, but Cardiff Met are making a pretty decent job of it.
If you look at the players that have come through the college in its various incarnations over the decades, it’s like a Who’s Who of Welsh rugby.
Gareth Edwards, JJ Williams, Clive Rowlands, Allan Martin, John Bevan, Roy Bergiers, Brynmor Williams, David Richards, John Devereux, Stuart Davies, Jon Humphreys, Ben Evans, Gareth Cooper, Ryan Jones, Aaron Shingler, Ken Owens, Alex Cuthbert.
The list of internationals just goes on and on and, with each passing year, it grows.
If you look at next weekend’s England-Wales game at Twickenham, you will have two recent Met graduates in the opposing ranks in back row duo Alex Dombrandt and Aaron Wainwright.
On top of that, there are two further Cyncoed products in Eddie Jones’ Six Nations squad in Harlequins centre Luke Northmore and London Irish back row Tom Pearson.
England boss Jones delivered a typical headline-grabbing quip on the subject when he said every club would now be looking in the bars of Cardiff Met for rugby players.
Understandably, the college would rather focus on his more serious comment that it’s “a popular breeding ground for Test match rugby players”.
The good work continues, with further talent emerging.
Solihull-born scrum-half Ellis Bevan was capped by Wales U20s after impressing for the Met and has now been handed a contract by Cardiff Rugby.
If you look at the current Wales U20s squad, it includes Cyncoed students Joe Cowell, Morgan Lloyd and Rhys Barratt, with loosehead prop Cowell having played for Cardiff in the Champions Cup against Toulouse in December.
Just as it churned out players during its time as the Cardiff Teacher Training College, South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education and UWIC, so it does so now as Cardiff Met.
So what is the secret to the establishment’s sustained success as a prolific production line of rugby talent?
Well, you only have to take a trip around the campus for an answer to that question in terms of the state-of-the art sport facilities, with the superb NIAC indoor training centre, the strength and conditioning set-up and the top-of-the-range analysis suite.
You’ve also got an array of hugely experienced coaches and administrators running the show, while the long list of internationals on the honours board certainly helps when it comes to recruitment.
It really is some rugby programme, with 12 teams and around 280 players.
The first team compete in BUCS Super Rugby, alongside the likes of Durham, Exeter, Loughborough and Hartpury, plus Welsh rivals Swansea and Cardiff Universities.
They currently lie fourth with the play-offs on the horizon.
Then the second string play in the Welsh Championship, against sides such as Pontypool, Neath, Bargoed and Bedwas. They are fourth in that table too.
So it’s a thriving set-up in every sense, delivering not just players but also future coaches and analysts via the sports-focused degree qualifications on offer.
What then of the people at the heart of the operation?
Here are their stories.
The Director of Rugby
Danny Milton has been on board since 2012 and took over from Chris Davey in running the programme in 2018.
“The history here is really, really important,” he said.
“I am so lucky to have the opportunity to be involved with a fantastic group of staff, players and students who put a lot of time and effort in.
“But this is work that goes back to Gareth Edwards’ time.
“To see the people that have come through here, that history piece is really important for us.
“It’s not like Alex, Luke and Tom in the England squad has just happened. This is a result of years and years of hard work.
“We were pleased with Eddie Jones’ comments. Maybe not so much the ones about carousing the bars, probably more the ones about being a breeding ground for Test match rugby!
“Let’s not make out rugby players don’t drink at all. But you’re not getting up four mornings a week at 6.30am, doing analysis, leadership and gym sessions by going out on the booze.
“The players put in a huge amount of work, with the support of all the staff. We are really proud of what we are trying to do here.”
Milton says one key aspect of the programme is its not solely about results on the field.
“I am probably not going to be fired in the morning if we lose a particular game, which gives us an advantage,” he said.
“We are not an Academy, we are not measured on that win-loss.
“Yes, we want to be successful, but it allows us to focus on the more holistic side of things, with an emphasis on the academic aspect as well as the rugby, trying to develop them into good people.
“The hope is they are better as a person coming out of here, in terms of skills and communication.
“Now, some young people are ready to go straight into a club or regional Academy at 18.
“But not everyone is ready to be a professional athlete at that age.
“What university offers is the all-round development you can get over three years. The bigger picture really helps people.
“Having the opportunity to come out with a degree, alongside your rugby development, is something that should be celebrated and it’s the right pathway for some people.”
Finally, Milton adds: “I am Welsh, I am working in a Welsh University, I want Wales rugby to be the best that it can.
“Would I like to see more Welsh students? Yeah, definitely.
“But we have got a responsibility to all the students who come here.
“We have got Poland internationals, USA internationals, it’s about that development from everywhere.
“I can’t make someone who is English Welsh. I can try, but I can’t!
“If Alex Dombrandt scores three tries next week against Wales, as long as Aaron Wainwright scores four, we will be all right.”
The Coach
Ian Gardner is well placed to put the standard of rugby at the college into context.
“I coached in the Welsh Premiership for years and years with Bedwas and I know exactly where it lies,” he said.
“If I am honest, we probably wouldn’t beat a lot of the teams in the Premiership.
“That’s because our boys are 19, 20-years-old. Having them go against the men from Merthyr or wherever is going to be a physical mismatch.
“But you drop these boys into Premiership teams, they would excel.
“We are getting more and more competitive. We played Ebbw Vale in pre-season and really competed with them.
“If we put our top team out every week in the Welsh Championship, we would be there or thereabouts.
“I think we would be bottom end of the Premiership, top end of the Championship.
“It is our goal eventually to try and get into the Premiership. To do that, we would probably have to look at strategies of getting boys to stay on for a fourth year or maybe PHDs.”
The Players
Barney Langton-Cryer is a second row from Cowbridge, who is in his third year studying business economics.
“I feel during these three years I have really developed as a player and as a person,” he said.
“I have really enjoyed it. It’s a good pathway.
“When I came to Uni, I had only done half a block with Blues U18s. Becoming a pro player wasn’t even an option for me.
“If I hadn’t come here, I would probably just be playing local rugby somewhere and I would have just settled for that.
“Whereas now, I have excelled here over the last three years and it has made me realise I can actually go all the way.
“I think I was one of those players who developed later. University is the perfect place to come if you are not ready at 18.”
His talent has seen him invited along to training with both the Dragons and the Scarlets.
“I’m hoping to get a contract when I finish here,” he said.
“I’ve found what I want to do with my career.”
Oliver James is a first year sports coaching student from Cardiff who plays full-back or winger.
“I am just loving it,” he said.
“I was linked with Cardiff Blues for two to three years, but that came to an end, so I decided to come to Cardiff Met.
“Since coming here, I’ve trained way more than I would in an Academy and played way more games.
“The perception is if you go to an Academy you kick on to be a pro, but a lot of the Academy players don’t actually sign pro.
“I feel by coming here a lot of players get picked up faster or spotted more because of the coverage BUCs is getting now. It’s a bigger fishpond for players and talent.
“Hopefully, I’ll sign somewhere in Wales or across the bridge and go professional. That’s the aim, the goal.”
The Fitness Guru
Dai Watts oversees the strength and conditioning programme for the college’s rugby set-up.
He worked with both Aaron Wainwright and Alex Dombrandt and provides a fascinating insight into their respective strengths.
“Aaron’s repeat ability for speed was unbelievable,” he said.
“His figures were off the scale. He is one of the best I have ever tested.
“He was a quick guy and when he started to put muscle mass on, he only got quicker.
“From an athletic point of view, he was a wonderful player and very bright as well.
“When we had Alex, he was nearly 140kgs and we got him down to about 120kgs.
“He was squatting 200-plus with us and he got his 20 metre time under three seconds.
“We moved a long way forward with Alex. When he first came in, he was a really good cricketer and there was talk of him coming into the Welsh Universities cricket squad.
“We found that out in pre-season when we got a cricket game going and he started hitting people all over the place!
“He worked hard for us and you could see from the word go he was a player.
“He had a great offload game and he worked tremendously hard from a strength and conditioning point of view. He is a special player.”
The Analyst
Former Pontypool and Newport back rower Alun Carter had already won two Wales caps when he took up a place studying sport and human movement at the old Cardiff Institute of Higher Education in 1994.
As well as playing for the Cyncoed college, he also got involved with its ground-breaking centre for performance analysis, going on to become Wales team analyst as a result.
He is now back as a lecturer in Sport Performance Analysis and it’s fair to say a lot has changed.
“When it all began, back in 1993, Keith Lyons and Gareth Potter were in a broom cupboard above the library,” he said.
“They had two video recorders. a tripod, a camera and one computer.
“Now we have 25 computers where students can go and do analysis.
“We have probably got more facility in terms of software and hardware than any club or international organisation.
“The undergrad course started in 2015 and we now have 260 students studying sports analysis in total.
“You will find performance analysts from Cardiff Met in every premier club, every region, internationally, all over the world.
“It’s just grown and grown.
“It’s phenomenal. I could have never imagined this could happen.”
As for the rugby side of things, compared with his playing days, Carter says: “I would have loved to have come into this.
“We didn’t have the phenomenal facilities we have got here today. The facilities are better and the tournament is better.
“The BUCs Super Rugby has given players the opportunity to hit a level, so they can go on to international rugby within a year.
“The tournament has engaged people within the whole university, from the different campuses. We had support back in the 1990s, but not to the same vibrant level as today.”
The Scrum Doctor
Former Newport prop Alun Williams has worked with the Cardiff Met forwards for some 15 years now.
He explains what happens when a player with obvious talent arrives at the college from England.
“The first thing we do is grill them to see if they have got any Welsh qualification,” he said.
“We ask ‘Have you got any grandparents who like Welsh cakes?’, you know!
“But what you can’t do is make an Englishman Welsh.
“Alex, Luke and Tom wanted to play for England and they got offers from English clubs.
“The only way they would have stayed in Wales is if they didn’t get offers from over the bridge.
“That’s just the way it is and it’s understandable. They are English players.
“When people were talking about Cardiff not signing Alex, I thought they were unfairly treated there.
“We get a lot of the Welsh regional coaches come to our home games. We work very closely with the regions and have a healthy relationship with them.”
On Harlequins No 8 Dombrandt, he adds: “Alex is without doubt the most talented rugby player I have ever coached in my life.
“I think it’s a God given talent that he’s got, with his ability to spot a gap. For such a big man, he’s got electrifying pace over 25 metres.
“Then, add to that, his skill levels with ball in hand, he is just brilliant.
“Tom and Luke are two examples of players just really working hard and developing what they have got.”
So what about Jones’ line about the bars of Cardiff Met being the place to find rugby players?
“It was funny really because while these boys do have a bit of fun, you won’t find them in the bar, you are more likely to find them in the gym,” said Williams.
“We churn a lot of players out and always have done.
“It’s just over the last couple of years, we have been fortunate to have these three who have come right into the spotlight with their England call-ups.
“It gives us fantastic coverage, which helps us massively in our recruitment. It’s just nice to get that recognition.”
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