{"id":35792,"date":"2026-10-04T06:57:56","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T06:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/united-rugby-championship-the-welsh-talking-points-as-cardiff-and-dragons-start-strongly\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T06:57:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T06:57:56","slug":"united-rugby-championship-the-welsh-talking-points-as-cardiff-and-dragons-start-strongly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/united-rugby-championship-the-welsh-talking-points-as-cardiff-and-dragons-start-strongly\/","title":{"rendered":"United Rugby Championship: The Welsh talking points as Cardiff and Dragons start strongly"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Cardiff have claimed nine points from wins against Scarlets and Zebre but their programme will ramp up in the next two weeks.<\/p>\n

After defeating teams that finished 14th and 16th in the URC last season, Corniel van Zyl’s side will face defending league champions Leinster on Saturday in Dublin before a Champions Cup opener at English Prem winners Northampton.<\/p>\n

Cardiff coasted into a 40-8 lead against Zebre<\/a> but know they cannot afford to repeat the concentration lapse that allowed the Italians to score three tries and 19 points.<\/p>\n

“It’s something to work on,” said Van Zyl. “It’s stuff we can control but we take the win. We don’t normally have that kind of lead, so it’s unfamiliar territory.”<\/p>\n

Leinster have been in South Africa for the opening two games with narrow defeats by Lions and Sharks, claiming three bonus points.<\/p>\n

The Irish province return for the first competitive game at their expensively-redeveloped home, which is now called the Laya Arena and has a capacity of 20,600.<\/p>\n

“We know they’re a mega club, have very, very good players, good systems and good coaches, so it will be a nice challenge for us,” said Van Zyl.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully we’ll have a few players back. We have eight days this time around, so more time to prepare and recover.”<\/p>\n

The Zebre fixture was one to remember for 18-year-old Cardiff hooker Tom Howe, who celebrated his Cardiff debut as a replacement.<\/p>\n

“It is unbelievable,” said Howe. “I have grown up watching these games and my dad used to take me, so to get the chance to come here and play with my family watching is amazing.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Cardiff have claimed nine points from wins against Scarlets and Zebre but their programme will ramp up in the next two weeks. After defeating teams that finished 14th and 16th in the URC last season, Corniel van Zyl’s side will face defending league champions Leinster on Saturday in Dublin before a Champions Cup opener at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35794,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35792\/revisions\/35794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}