These are the rugby headlines for Thursday, December 28.

Jiffy gives a scathing assessment of the Dragons

Welsh legend Jonathan ‘Jiffy’ Davies says “a lot” of the Dragons squad are not good enough to be professional rugby players after being humiliated by Cardiff in the Boxing Day derby.

Dai Flanagan’s side suffered a 55-21 defeat at Cardiff Arms Park on Tuesday as the blue and black scored nine tries in front of a capacity crowd. Seven of those came in the first half, with doubles from Rhys Carré, James Botham and Tomos Williams putting the hosts 45-7 up at half-time.

Although the Dragons showed a little more fight in the second half, scoring 14 points to Cardiff’s 10, the result was decided long before the half-time whistle, with the visitors putting on a miserable performance as they were completely defeated and outperformed. your opponents. Get the latest rugby news straight to your inbox for free with our daily newsletter.

After the match, Flanagan admitted that the defeat was the worst moment of his career and that he is now under pressure to change the result and keep his job. But Jiffy says it was the players at the coach’s disposal who let the team down and turned to the former Twitter employee

The 61-year-old made the comments in response to a video of former Dragons player Andrew Coombs crashing his former team’s game while he was a commentator on the BBC’s derby coverage.

Asked what he thought of the first-half results, Coombs said: “I think they were beaten and Dai Flanagan had to kick a few balls at half-time. There are a lot of players on this park who are not performing well and have let the team down a lot.

“Come on, you lose 45-7, I honestly don’t know how you come back from that. You have to make some changes. “Someone like Dan Lydiat on the bench, get him forward, get him to face the Cardiff players and try to lead the team with you.”

Fellow analyst Sean Holley added: “The Dragons lacked any organization. Their pattern, they conceded penalties, they missed layups, they missed tackles. “That can’t happen at this level.”

Former Wales star James Hook said: “At times it felt like the Dragons just didn’t want to be there.”

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Returning star sends timely reminder to Gatland

Welsh international James Botham gave Warren Gatland plenty to think about with an impressive performance in his first game back from injury.

The full-back scored two goals and was an influential figure in the first game of the season against the Dragons, on Boxing Day, admitting “we couldn’t have done better”.

The 25-year-old explained that the result was fantastic, but jokingly admitted that yesterday’s pigs wrapped in blankets may have hindered him at times.

“It’s good to be back. We couldn’t have achieved a better result. “Christmas dinner definitely came at some point, but it was good,” he said. “We worked hard for 12 weeks to get back and it paid off. It’s good to be running again and everything, and I feel great.

“When you like it, you play for each other, you play for the badge, you play for everyone and even for the fans, you have to play for them because they come and you want them to have a good experience and come. It was excellent . “Everyone agreed and we got the result.”

Speaking about the attempts, he added: “I had confidence in both. Honestly, at first I didn’t know what they were looking at. It’s one of those things that you do, you’re in the mood and then you try to celebrate, but then you stop because obviously the TMO.

“But they both tried and it was great to be back and that’s the main thing. Playing with the boys and my rubbish Rhys Carré, he also made two attempts, Tomos, the boys flooded.”

Dupont could miss two Six Nations tournaments

France could be without Antoine Dupont for the next two Six Nations as the talismanic scrum-half takes a break after next year’s Olympic competition.

The 27-year-old will miss the next championship after confirming his move to rugby sevens at the Paris Olympics, joining the program at the start of the new year. Dupont will compete in the Sevens series in February and March, with a brief return to Toulouse at the end of the season, before returning to the Sevens program for the Olympic Games in July.

However, reports in France suggest the Toulouse star could leave French rugby entirely when the Games end in August, with a real possibility of a short-term move to Japan. With the season running from December to June, such a move would provide Dupont a long-awaited recovery period as well as a potentially lucrative contract.

But it would also mean he would be ruled out of a second successive Six Nations and would not be available again for Les Bleus selection until the autumn of 2025, having missed half the World Cup cycle.

Toulouse coach Hugo Mol suggested Dupont could drop out of the top 14 after the Olympics, while club president Didier Lacroix admitted in an interview with L’Equipe that a split amid rows was “possible”.

“”If it is washed [after the Games] and it looks like it hasn’t been cut in a long time, we’ll have to wonder about its recovery.”