These are your evening rugby headlines on Thursday, March 27.
Four Welsh legends thrown into Lions mix
Former England international Chris Ashton says Andy Farrell should call in some Welsh coaches to join his British & Irish Lions staff before this summer's tour of Australia, with four names thrown into the mix.
Farrell confirmed his coaching ticket on Tuesday, with Ireland's Simon Easterby, Andrew Goodman and John Fogarty all landing roles alongside England's Richard Wigglesworth and Scotland's John Dalziel.
As things stand, no coaches from Wales will be heading Down Under this summer, but it remains a possibility that Farrell may opt to call in a Welsh voice to help him on the tour.
Asked if Welsh representation was needed, Ashton told the Rugby Union Weekly podcast: "I think so, because Wales have got a long history with the Lions. [Long-time Lions coach Neil] Jenkins is someone who is an icon and we haven't really got that, apart from Faz, doing the coaching.
"We haven't really got that in the team, so maybe... we'll see what happens."
On who Farrell could possibly turn to, the former England winger added: "There's a lot of famous Lions, Welsh players, current, new. I asked Sam [Warburton] the other day, I said: 'Have they asked you?' Someone like that, (Leigh) Halfpenny on kicking, there's a few people..."
Asked if Adam Jones - who acted as Wales' scrum coach during the Six Nations - also deserved a shot, Ashton replied: "Yep, there's a few very good coaches that have got Lions pedigree in Wales."
Wales star 'would like to stay' amid France links
Mark Jones says Adam Beard would like to stay at the Ospreys despite getting linked with a big-money move to French giants Montpellier.
The Wales lock has been a stalwart of the Ospreys for the past 11 years and his departure would be a blow for the Welsh club. But Jones insists the Ospreys are working hard to retain his services.
"We'd love to keep Beardy and we want to keep all our best players. I definitely think he would like to stay in and around the Ospreys," said the Ospreys head coach. "He's an Ospreys man through and through. He loves coming into the building.
"He's loved coming back into the group but obviously he's also got to consider his options when he's out of contract and make a big decision because whatever decision he makes is going to tie him in for the foreseeable future.
"So, we are chatting and Dan's (Dan Griffiths - Ospreys general manager) is chatting to him around it at the moment. We are hoping we'll have some sort of certainty over the next couple of weeks."
Montpellier are the leading contenders to sign Beard but there are other clubs interested in acquiring his services.
"Beardy is working through that," said Jones. "His contract is up. With somebody like Beardy - a British Lion, a multi cap international and regular starter over the years - his contract is one many teams are trying to get their hands on.
"We are trying to work through that with Beardy and he's got to let us know in the not too distant future what his decision is there.
"But myself, Dan Griff and the other coaches are working constantly on all of our players who are out of contract in trying to retain the ones we want but also targeting players to replace the ones who make a different decision and move on."
Tonga star to make first Dragons start
Tonga international Paula Latu will make his first start for the injury-hit Dragons against Edinburgh on Friday night, with head coach Filo Tiatia making four changes to his starting side from last weekend's loss to Ulster.
Latu comes in for Chris Coleman, who suffered a head injury against the Irish side, at tighthead while locks Matthew Screech and George Nott are also casualties from last weekend.
Steve Cummins and Joe Davies come in to the second row in their place, while Rodrigo Martinez returns at loosehead having pulled out of the Ulster game with a leg injury.
Latu, who has five caps for Tonga and is primarily a loosehead, signed for the Rodney Parade side on a short-term deal in December after Leon Brown was forced into retirement by injury, and has since made seven appearances off the bench.
Tiatia has named an unchanged backline as his side look to end their 12-game losing streak in the URC, a run which has left them rock bottom of the table having not won since the opening day of the season. They face an Edinburgh side who have won one of their last four league games, but who have also not lost to a Dragons team in 13 years.
"Edinburgh are a good team," said Tiatia. "At home they play fast and like to play up tempo with a good set piece. It's going to be a heck of a challenge in Scotland.
"We need to start well and keep building around how we apply pressure from minute one. We showed that against Ulster, where we managed to do that with our pressure plan to get the ball back from kick-off."
Dragons: Huw Anderson; Rio Dyer, Joe Westwood, Aneurin Owen (capt), Ashton Hewitt; Will Reed, Rhodri Williams; Rodrigo Martinez, Elliot Dee, Paula Latu, Joe Davies, Steve Cummins, Shane Lewis-Hughes, Harrison Keddie, Aaron Wainwright.
Replacements: Brodie Coghlan, Dylan Kelleher-Griffiths, Nathan Evans, Barny Langton-Cryer, Taine Basham, Dane Blacker, Josh Thomas, Jared Rosser.
New Lions coach to lean on Townsend
By Anthony Brown, PA
Scotland forwards coach John Dalziel will lean heavily on Gregor Townsend’s experience as he prepares to go into “a brand new world” after earning a surprise call to join Andy Farrell’s British and Irish Lions backroom team.
Townsend was involved with the Lions as a player in 1997 and then as a coach in 2021 and the Scotland head coach was one of several people Farrell spoke to about Dalziel before including him on Wednesday as part of his coaching staff for this summer’s tour of Australia.
“Gregor’s been brilliant,” 48-year-old Dalziel told the Scottish Rugby podcast. “Obviously, the initial conversation (with Farrell), he didn’t know a lot about what was going to happen but he just said he’s very keen because he asked a lot about you.
“And then obviously, after I got the news, Gregor was the first person I called and we went into a bit more depth. He’s been brilliant just around the advice he can give and I’m going to lean on him pretty heavily over the next few months as well, because you’re going into a brand new world there.
“As an ex-player and somebody that’s had the chance to coach there, Gregor knows the Lions very well, so he’ll be somebody I’ll be relying on heavily over the next period.”
Dalziel, who has been a Scotland coach since 2020, said the Lions was never on his radar until he first heard from Farrell late last month.
“It feels a little bit surreal at the moment,” said the former Border Reivers forward. “I’ve come off the back of a really busy Six Nations campaign so I’m just trying to process it really.
“In the end, it happened pretty quickly. It was something that was completely not on my radar at all. You’re fully immersed in the Six Nations, already intense enough.
“I think Andy had a chat with Gregor, and I had a brief chat with him (Farrell) on the second fallow week ahead of the Wales game.
“He said there’s a process of talking to all the probable coaches from the home nations and that I might get a phone call. And two days later, I had a phone call. It was a delight to hear the words coming from his mouth.
“When you’re involved in a job with the national team, you always trust and back the work that you do, but something like that (the Lions) always seems so far away. It was never really on my radar to even give it another thought.
“I pinch myself every day being the Scotland forwards coach as it is, so that (being a Lions coach) is a huge honour and something that will probably sink in a bit more in the coming days and weeks.”
