Just maybe, it was the brightest weekend for a while in terms of results for Wales’ professional teams, with a standout win for the Ospreys in the Heineken Champions Cup and impressive away successes for both Cardiff and the Scarlets in the EPCR Challenge Cup.
The Dragons could have made it a full house of victories, only for Pau to prevail at Rodney Parade.
Against a background of turbulence in Welsh rugby, though, three positive results was a decent return.
Read more: Today's rugby news as returning Wales international puts Warren Gatland on alert
We take a look at the weekend’s winners and losers.
WINNERS
Welsh professional players
“It’s not a nice time to be a Welsh rugby player right now, with the uncertainty and potential pay cuts and even job losses that could be coming. You have to feel sympathy for them.”
So reckoned a figure over the weekend who’s involved on a daily basis in the game this side of the River Severn. He was speaking at a time when there’s talk of salary caps, reductions in wages of up to 50 percent for some and squad sizes being cut as Welsh rugby attempts to grapple with its latest financial crisis
Under those circumstances, the efforts of regional players over the weekend deserve to be applauded.
The Ospreys went to southern France to pull off one of the finest Welsh European wins by beating French champions Montpellier. Scarlets went to Italy to beat the Cheetahs with six tries, while Cardiff, who seem to be gaining in confidence by the week, gave Newcastle Falcons what they deserved for making multiple changes as Dai Young's team ran out 47-10 winners at Kingston Park.
If the Dragons just failed to make it a clean sweep of Welsh wins, the successes of the other three were notable. Off pitch worries for players with mortgages to pay and perhaps families to support can be ruinous to performance levels, but there were some huge displays in the matches listed above.
Character was shown.
It was beyond impressive.
Ospreys head coach Toby Booth
One win in the first 10 matches was not what Toby Booth would have wanted when he mapped out his goals for the season at the Ospreys.
A lot of the defeats were narrow affairs, but they were losses all the same and the setback at the hands of Leicester Tigers in Swansea in the first round of the Heineken Champions Cup was particularly deflating as a largely full-strength home team fell to a youthful opposition who were missing eight of their best players.
But the Ospreys came out fighting against French champions Montpellier on Saturday evening, scoring three tries en route to a shock 21-10 victory. Put the win in context: even when they had their team of so-called galacticos, the south-west Wales region struggled in away games against Top 14 teams. Indeed, before Saturday evening, in their entire history they had won just one out of 17 games on visits to France.
They got it right at the GGL Stadium, though, imposing themselves at forward and playing some nice rugby behind, with Rhys Webb and Owen Williams controlling matters.
The win breaks a difficult run and head coach Booth appeared quite choked after the game.
Addressing journalists over Zoom late on Saturday evening, he agreed with one reporter who suggested the match and the result had been an emotional experience. “Yeah, it was,” he said.
“People care about it, coaches invest a lot of effort and time, and I was emotional. Sport is emotive. Everyone loves it for the drama. I was emotional because I know what people have put in and I know their desire to get a result, and I’m pleased for them.”
He and Justin Tipuric also said the win couldn’t be a one-off, and they were right. The Ospreys’ class of 2022-23 have shown they can perform at a high level, but they need to make it their default setting.
Leigh Halfpenny
Quietly, amid no great fanfare, a Welsh rugby favourite returned to playing action over the weekend.
Leigh Halfpenny came on with half-an-hour to play for the Scarlets against the Cheetahs at Stadio Lanfranchi. His policing of backfield was as impressive as ever as well as his uncanny ability to see things almost before they happen. Experience built up over more than 14 years helps in that respect. You can read here about what became of Halfpenny's team-mates in his first game of professional rugby.
He’s had a woeful run of luck over the past 18 months, with a career-threatening knee injury followed by frustrating niggles that have restricted him to just three outings for the Scarlets and only 21 minutes for Wales during the recent autumn series.
Halfpenny is 34 on Thursday, but, three shy of a hundred caps for his country, he’ll still want to show Warren Gatland he can operate at Test level. Gatland likes him and knows what he can do, but it still seems reasonable to assume Halfpenny will need to engage his best form to secure a place in the Kiwi’s plans for the Six Nations.
All who have enjoyed the Gorseinon man's brave and skilful play over almost a decade and half will surely wish him well.
Morgan Morris
There were some immense individual displays from regional players over the weekend, but maybe Morgan Morris’ effort for the Ospreys against Montpellier was the pick of the bunch.
The Welsh team were playing the French champions, after all, in their own backyard.
But Morris stood out on a night when any number of Ospreys players delivered big performances.
After the game, Justin Tipuric said of the No. 8: “He’s been superb for the last number of seasons. That’s the crazy thing about him. He just keeps his head down and keeps putting in performance after performance.
“He’s such a valuable player for us and a good team player as well. He does a lot of donkey work and a lot of try-scoring as well —he’s so hard to stop from a couple of metres out. Every time he picks the ball up from a couple of metres out, you get ready to celebrate a try.
“Like I said, he’s such a good kid as well. He just keeps his head down and keeps working hard, puts in performance after performance and he’s getting the credit he deserves.”
Capped 89 times himself, Tipuric was asked if he felt Morris was ready to take the next step. “It’s not my job to pick all that, but, from my point of view he’s class. If he’s doing it at regional level, you’d like to think he’d have the chance to represent that Welsh jersey.
“Thankfully, I’m not in charge of picking the Wales team.”
Warren Gatland is; expect him to watch Morris closely over the festive derbies.
LOSERS
European rugby
The Heineken Champions Cup used to be a tournament in which everyone wanted to show their best.
Sadly, it isn’t ageing particularly well.
South African teams have added to the mix but the fixture schedule and travel issues saw the Bulls leave behind 21 senior players for their away encounter against Exeter Chiefs, with a United Rugby Championship encounter against the Stormers to be played in Cape Town on Friday evening.
They were duly thrashed 44-14.
Lyon face Toulon in the Top 14 on Thursday and were without a number of regulars for their home contest against Saracens, while Gloucester, another club worried about playing a few games over the festive season, rested 13 players for the trip to Dublin to take on Leinster and were spanked 57-0 for their troubles. One report reckoned the Irish province “merely went through the motions to run in nine tries”. It was all more than a bit shambolic.
You would not have imagined the sponsors or the broadcasters would have been turning cartwheels after all this.
And then there are the supporters, who presumably want to watch the best players when they part with their pounds, euros and rands. If they feel cheated at seeing teams putting out second strings, who could blame them?
The EPCR Challenge Cup takes all this to a different level.
Brive turned up at Cardiff in round one with just one starter from the side they’d fielded in the Top 14 the previous weekend, while Bayonne doubled up on respect for the competition when they picked two players who had been in their run-on side in the French league the week before.
This week, Newcastle made a shedload of changes for the visit of Cardiff and ended up being crushed 47-10 at home. All over the place, sides have been chopping and changing, evidently seeing the second-tier European event as the chance to give fringe players exposure and perhaps senior squad members time off.
Of course there are notable exceptions, which include the Welsh contingent, with the Scarlets and Cardiff fielding strong teams and performing well.
But, generally, there have been too many under-strength sides on display.
Europe used to be so much better.
It should still be.
Dragons
While the other Welsh pro teams enjoyed impressive wins, the Dragons were unable to get the job done against a Pau team who were billed as second string but on the day did not prove second rate.
It was a disappointing effort from the hosts at Rodney Parade.
A week earlier, they had earned plaudits after a fine show in South Africa against the Lions, but this was a step back.
Hooker Bradley Roberts stood tall for them but too few of his team-mates were at their best.
Dai Flanagan will want a significant improvement for the games with Cardiff and the Scarlets over the festive season.
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