Today's rugby news as Wales star suffers head injury and coach 'not proud' of what he saw at start
Here are your rugby morning headlines for Thursday, January 2.
Wales star forced off as boss not proud of first half
Wales No. 8 Aaron Wainwright was forced off with a failed HIA during the Dragons' defeat to the Scarlets, as Filo Tiatia was left to rue his side's wretched first-half performance.
Wainwright didn't return for the second-half of the 32-15 defeat to the Scarlets in Llanelli, less than two weeks before Warren Gatland names his Six Nations squad.
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The Gwent side were 24-3 down at the break after a woeful first-half, with interim head coach Tiatia - who had missed the Boxing Day defeat to Cardiff after being back in New Zealand for family reasons - left disappointed upon his return to the coaching box.
"We played 40 minutes," said Tiatia afterwards. "We didn't play too much rugby in the first-half.
"We weren't at the races. We've just got to be on when you play at this level for 80 minutes. We had opportunities.
“We have a lot of growth to do, and not just the players, to make sure performances are where they need to be.
“We have spoken about the New Year and we have to make a choice. Some habits are hard to break.
"I am really proud of the effort in the second half but I wouldn't say that I was very proud of the first half,” he continued. “We were just not where we needed to be.”
Ospreys coach has no complains over red card
Ospreys head coach Mark Jones had no complaints over James Fender's red card in the 13-13 draw against Cardiff at the Arms Park.
The young second-row was dismissed just before half-time for a dangerous clearout on Dan Thomas, with the Ospreys responding well to almost claim victory at the death.
Afterwards, Jones admitted he was disappointed the Ospreys couldn't make it two wins for two since Jones took over from Toby Booth.
"I'm very happy with the fight and the quality the players showed after the red card but we're all frustrated with the result," he said. "We didn't take our opportunities in the game, especially right at the end. We have nailed those moments in the past but we didn't today.
"We had to reorganise after the red but we felt keeping a full pack was the way we could win the game. It was a risk but I think it paid off."
As for Fender's red card, Jones had no complaints.
"I haven't actually seen it back," he said. "I've only seen the stadium screen and we were quite a way from it.
"But I know if you land on people's limbs recklessly, whether it's an accident or on purpose, you're going to get a red card. There's no malice in it, I know that much.
"From what I've seen, it's poor technique which has ended up with him landing on the lower limb. We're trying to clean up the game and I get it.
"It can end people's careers and keep them out of the game for a long time. I'll have to look at it back, but there's certainly no malice from James. It's just clumsy."
Cardiff coach rues 'couple of points dropped'
Like Jones, Cardiff coach Matt Sherratt admitted he was frustrated the Blue and Blacks could only manage a draw against the 14-man Ospreys on New Year's Day.
“It’s a bit of a difficult one," said Sherratt. "If I’m honest, I think it was a couple of points dropped, obviously them going down to 14. We evened that up with the penalty count and, losing two players in the second half.
“So I’m a little bit disappointed. It’s a hard one to really put my finger on. I thought we started well. We’ve not started well in the last four or five games.
“Obviously 15-0 down last week, 21 against Ulster and it’s kind of shocked us into a better performance second half, and it was probably the opposite today.
“So we had a really good, fast start put a lot of emphasis on trying to win the kicking battle and the breakdown and we did that first 10 minutes but then because of the penalty count the game just kind of meandered from set piece to set piece and that’s not what we wanted.
“I just think if we’d have put three, four or five structured phases together there would have been gaps but we just didn’t give ourselves the opportunity to do it.
“There seemed to be quite long periods of inactivity and reset scrums and line-outs and people going down on the floor and it just kind of run away from us in the second half.
“I was really confident that if we put anything that resembled our best game on the field in the second half we could have got a bonus point win and that’s not being disrespectful to the Osprey but we just couldn’t get enough on the field.
“There were 27/28 penalties in the game, the average is 19. That kind of ruins the spectacle. I don’t think it was the referee’s fault either, it was probably two teams trying a little bit too hard and getting on the wrong side.
“These derbies are all going to be close. You’ve got four teams, all with a very similar budget, similar squad sizes. It’s going to be little moments that’s going to decide all the derbies.
“We sneaked a win last week, against the Dragons. Today’s a draw, so I think that’s going to be the nature of the derbies really. But I think overall, to be positive, we’ve had a good start to the season, the club’s in a good spot.
“So I’ve probably got to just temper a bit of disappointment for today with where we are big picture really.”
