Summer recess for Welsh trio as testing season ends

Cardiff continue to fly the flag for Wales after reaching the United Rugby Championship (URC) play-offs but the season is over for the other three Welsh professional men's sides.

While the Blue and Blacks finished sixth, Ospreys (11th), Scarlets (14th) and Dragons (15th) have not made the top eight of the 16-team league.

The 25 league victories shared between the four Welsh teams matches the tally of the 2024-25 season.

As is traditional in Welsh rugby, those modest returns occur as sides have modest budgets compared to rivals, while uncertainty has again plagued the domestic game, with the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) stating during the campaign they intend to cull a professional team by 2028.

As Cardiff, still owned by the WRU, prepare for the play-off push, BBC Sport Wales looks at the three sides that have finished their campaigns and head for a summer recess.

A record 68-14 defeat to Leinster was not the way Ospreys wanted to finish the season and send off Jac Morgan, who leaves for Gloucester next season along with fellow Wales captain Dewi Lake.

“The scoreboard was ugly and I will try not to focus too much on that,” said head coach Mark Jones.

“It was probably one game too much for us this season and I don’t want it to be the match we remember."

Ospreys' league performance is almost identical to the previous campaign, matching the seven wins with one fewer league point but finishing one place higher.

They were controversially knocked out of the Challenge Cup last 16 by Ulster after a Kieran Hardy late score was ruled out for a forward pass.

Ospreys managed to win the Welsh URC shield involving games between the quartet.

The results have to be judged against the backdrop of a turbulent season when the Ospreys' existence has been threatened following WRU plans to reduce the amount of professional sides to three.

Ospreys have found themselves in the firing line, especially when it was announced in January, that their owners Y11 Sport & Media were the preferred bidders to buy WRU-owned Cardiff.

That caused major anxiety with the initial announcement stating Ospreys' professional future was only guaranteed until the end of the 2026-27 season.

While Jones will be scrutinised this season for things like team selection in his first full season in charge, he has had to contend with other matters.

“With everything that has gone on, I've learned an awful lot,” said Jones.

“A fair bit about myself, the coaching and playing group, backroom staff and our supporters.

"It's been an enlightening season around how certain people respond to scenarios.

"I've learned people within our building are incredible, in terms of their character, work ethic and mindset to keep going through it all."

Jones says it is hard to express how significantly the organisation has been affected by the uncertainty.

"There's been times where you couldn't have blamed anybody for taking it easy or having a lacklustre mindset," said Jones.

"They will have felt like there's no point, especially with some news we've had during the season.

"If I could change what's happened this season I 100% would. Nobody should go through that.

"But I wouldn't change the people we've done it with. They have done an incredible job and given me a lot of strength when I've needed it."

The Y11 and WRU deal collapsed in April with four professional sides continuing in Wales for the next two seasons.

The WRU still plan to reduce to three and who survives in west Wales remains to be seen with further details expected in June.

"I would encourage everybody to finalise things and show a clear vision for players, supporters and stakeholders,” said Jones.

“Once we know what we're working towards, people can get behind it. The problem has been the ambiguity hanging over everybody."

Ospreys leave their temporary Bridgend home of this season to move into a refurbished St Helen’s ground in Swansea.

“Hopefully we have less disruption next year with the off-field antics and more talk around performance on the pitch," said Jones.

Ospreys will bring in international signings and will need another fly-half option with Jack Walsh leaving.

Scarlets have also been affected by off-the-field issues as they have endured a difficult season.

After reaching the play-offs in 2024-25 with an eighth-place finish, Scarlets have dropped six places to 14th.

They have won only four games compared to nine last year and recorded 20 fewer league points. This is the biggest drop-off of any of the 16 URC teams.

Scarlets managed to avoid finishing as Wales’ bottom URC side following the final day 35-35 home draw against Dragons but only on virtue of winning one game than the Gwent region.

That should be scant consolation for a Scarlets side that also lost four Champions Cup games, failing to reached the knockout stages in either European competition.

Scarlets were rarely heavily beaten and continually competitive in games but made to pay for their indiscipline. The tally of 20 yellow cards was the most in the league.

There was coaching upheaval mid-season when interim director of rugby Nigel Davies was brought in above head coach Dwayne Peel in January.

When asked directly whether Davies and Peel will be there next season, Davies responded: "We'll be making announcements shortly around that.

"It's probably within the next two or three weeks when there's a few things we need to confirm.

"The plan is in place and will be delivered. It's aligned so everybody within the organisation knows what they have to do for us to be successful."

Scarlets can boast the signing of the season after snapping up number eight Fletcher Anderson from New Zealand.

Davies says there will be more recruits, especially in the front five as they look to replace the departing international trio of Alec Hepburn,Marnus van der Merwe and Jake Ball and Australian lock Max Douglas.

On the face of it, 2025-26 looks like another season of struggle for Dragons after they finished 15th in the URC and as Wales' lowest-ranked side.

But the Rodney Parade club, who won just twice in 2024-25, head into the summer with belief after a campaign in which they made great strides.

They finish with seven victories, made the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup where they pushed heavyweights Montpellier all the way, ended their four-year league away drought at Zebre and became a tougher nut to crack.

It is their best season since the 2019-20 campaign under Dean Ryan when progress was halted by the Covid pandemic.

Dragons' fortunes turned around in December when a comeback victory against Lyon - their first of 2025 - sparked a five-game unbeaten run in Newport, including a staggering six-try hammering of a Connacht side who are in the play-offs.

They still have their frustrations with three home draws in which they failed to attempt a routine drop goal against Sharks and then missed kicks from the tee against Ospreys and Benetton.

The theme continued in the season finale when they drew a derby at Scarlets that they should have won.

Filo Tiatia's side also endured agonising late losses to Munster in Cork and Ospreys in Bridgend.

"There's a lot of lessons around the growth of the group. There's been good areas around where we've improved from previous seasons," said the head coach, who has been greatly helped by the arrival of experienced assistant Dale MacLeod.

"There has also been growth around how players lead their team and there's a massive growth around our leadership.

"I'm happy where we've got to, but the reality is where we are on the ladder and we have lots to keep improving on."

Dragons signed well last summer - with fly-half Tinus de Beer, lock Levi Douglas, wing or centre Fine Inisi and flanker Thomas Young all featuring prominently - and will be encouraged by the progress of homegrown players.

Lock Ben Carter took a big step forward on the international stage in the Six Nations, hooker Brodie Coghlan was capped in the autumn, blind-side flanker Ryan Woodman is in the summer squad and scrum-half Che Hope would have been were it not for injury.

Added to that, rapid wing Rio Dyer is back to his best, even if it did not earn a Wales recall.

Dragons have shown they are no pushovers, but now the task is to take the next step into the group of the middle third of the URC.

How they cope with the loss of talisman Aaron Wainwright to Leicester next season might determine whether they can achieve that.