By Zippy
January 9 2006

Round up of the Celtic League matches this weekend, mostly good for the Welsh. My first proper story in quite a while, I’ll take the opportunity to wish you all a belated Happy New Year.

Dragons 27 Connacht 19 (Friday Night)

 

In a weird way I kind of enjoyed it, it was back to the Dragons mentality when they were coached by Ruddock, everyone underates them, no one likes the way they play BUT Turner knows that every sound team needs to have a good pack and an influential captain and thats what they have.

 

Solid foundations to move on from.

  

Full credit to Connacht who always stick at it and know when they are dangerous.

 

Chapman looks a find on the wing and Warlow and Cooper were very poor, how many times did Warlow give Luscombe the ball? I can think of once and they scored, interesting that.

 

Borders 26 Cardiff Blues 23 (Sunday Afternoon)

 

Blues not far above the Ospreys/Dragons and both will have players to come back later in the year and could both make a surge like Llanelli did last season.

 

What are the Blues thinking?

a - They are going to win the Heineken Cup

b - Supporters have nothing better to do than pay for a trip to Italy

 

As for the performance itself, it was disjointed and in a way the last few weeks would have dented the Blues revival.

 

On the positive side Lomu gave the Borders probably their best crowd and amazingly they are in mid table.

 

Scarlets 20 Leinster 18 (Saturday Evening)

 

The Scarlets should have had that in the bag a long long time ago, I suppose they can take as a major positive that they dominated Leinster who are a very good side.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/4592930.stm

 

On a weekend of highs for Llanelli they also announced the signing of Stephen Jones beating off competition from the Cardiff Blues.

 

The Ospreys

 

They had a free weekend but its Gav's appeal tomorrow, lets hope its cut by 5 weeks!

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/european/4557890.stm