Rhodri deserves his Welsh Students’ rugby cap

It is very much a case of ‘like father, like son’ in the Davies household of Crymych because dad Robin played scrum half for the Welsh Districts’ team in 1987 and son Rhodri has recently worn the No 9 shirt for the Welsh Students.

 

Davies junior joined Brinley Toms (Whitland) and Johnny Howard (Haverfordwest) in the students’ squad that travelled out to Heidelberg and beat their counterparts from Germany by 35-17 – and it was Rhodri who opened the Welsh scoring with a quickly-taken tap penalty and typical dart for the line that his father would have been proud to claim!

 

Cracking weekend in Germany

 

It nicely rounded off a cracking weekend for the Welsh team after they flew out on Friday, played Saturday afternoon and returned to this country the day after. Rhodri is rightly proud of his Welsh jersey and was awarded his coveted Welsh cap a couple of weeks later after their they had played England, where he retained his place at No 9 in the Welsh team.

 

Robin, mum Pat and brother Sion were understandably delighted at Rhodri’s success and it inevitably took Robin back those 26 years to the time when he donned his red jersey for the Welsh Junior Union team that entertained Sweden at Aberavon and ended up on the winning side in a 14-3 final scoreline.

 

Father and son together

 

To continue the father and son theme it is fair to say that Rhodri and Robin have spent a great deal of time together in the oval ball game because when Rhodri set out as a five year old it was Robin who was the Crymych junior coach right up through the age groups before Rhodri set out on his degree course in Sport and PE at UWIC whilst Robin joined Randal Evans in coaching Whitland after previous success as Crymych first team coach an conjunction with the late Glyndwr Richards.

 

There was success aplenty for Rhodri as he played in the club’s winning junior teams which won the county finals at under 11, 12, 13 and 16 levels alongside the likes of outside half Dyfan Dafydd and hooker

 

Carwyn Rees. They also reached the later stages of the youth cup before losing out to old rivals Cardigan.

 

Playing well for UWIC

 

 

Then it was off to Cardiff and Rhodri played pre-season with Carmarthen Quins before training with the UWIC team coached by Chris Davey, who is also head coach of the Welsh Students’ team. Rhodri soon established himself in the UWIC team which now plays in the Championship section of the national set-up as Cardiff Met and has beaten both Narberth and Whitlan

d this campaign.

 

In his first season UWIC reached the final of the British Universities Cup before losing to Durham, whilst last season saw Rhodri and Co lose out in the quarter finals to Hartpury College, on whom they are hoping to get revenge this season because they are drawn together this season.

 

New challenges afoot

 

This is Rhodri’s final year at Cardiff Met and Rhodri hopes to continue his rugby playing at least at Championship level, or even better in the Welsh Premiership as a full-time rugby professional Ask him about support and he would immediately nominate Pat and Robin alongside Chris Davey, Danny Milton (backs’ co