It’s festival time. No, no . . . put your tent away, drop the sleeping bag, and take off those wellies, we’re talking cricket festivals. Richard Thomas bangs the drum for Swansea cricket at St. Helen’s which gets underway this weekend. Glamorgan are among a dwindling group of first-class counties who host county cricket on out-grounds. In fact, the Welsh county are a rarity in that they have two venues they still use outside of their Cardiff HQ – St Helen’s in Swansea and Colwyn Bay Cricket Club. In a climate of counties tugging on the purse strings, out-ground cricket festivals are a dying breed, especially as they have to be consummate money-making ventures these days otherwise they are cruelly struck from the fixture list never to return.

The students of Cardiff Met FC are now just 90 minutes away from playing elite level European football next season. Their Welsh Premier League play-off victory – 2-1 over Carmarthen Town – means they now meet Bangor City on Saturday in the play-off final for a place in the Europa League next season. Former BBC and Sky Sports TV producer Joe Towns is now a lecturer of sport broadcast at Cardiff Met University and has been blown away by the achievements of the football team this season. He watched the play-off semi-final from the comfort of his armchair, live on S4C.

Ospreys stalwart Joe Bearman is one of seven players who are leaving the region at the end of this season. Bearman – who is joining ambitious Merthyr – will be joined through the exit door by Tyler Ardron, Josh Matavesi, Sam Underhill, Tom Grabham, Jonathan Spratt and Dan Suter. Underhill had already declared he was moving to Bath next season to improve his England ambitions, whilst Matavesi had also chosen to switch to the Aviva Premiership by joining Newcastle Falcons.

Wales hooker Ken Owens says the reality that he is a Lion is finally hitting home. Warren Gatland’s 41-man squad met up for the first time on Monday at their plush Syon Park base on the outskirts of London as the tour of New Zealand looms into view.

England’s Gemma Clews claimed the best win of her career at the Welsh Ladies Open Amateur Stroke Play – with Welsh golfers Bethan Morris and Jordan Ryan finishing strongly in fifth and sixth. Clews, from Delamere Forest near Chester, played consistently in tough and windy conditions at Ashburnham.

Welsh rugby has always been tribal. But Geraint Powell has turned anthropologist to see if he can find a previously undiscovered tribe who worship the Welsh Premiership. There are some very rare creatures within the rugby clubs of Wales. These include supporters of the England Test team without any nationality or familial connection to England. There are also Newport RFC fans who are delighted at the prospect of inevitably losing ownership to whichever company that now replaces Newport RFC as the legal owner of Rodney Parade.

Matt Rees, the London Marathon hero who won the hearts of the nation when he helped fellow runner David Wyeth cross the finish line this year, triumphed at the Great Welsh Marathon. The Swansea Harrier won South Wales’ only marathon as hundreds took to the start line in Llanelli’s Festival Fields on Sunday.

A first away game of the season ended in a thrashing on England’s south coast for the South Wales Warriors. The Welshmen had travelled to Southampton to face the Solent Thrashers with both teams still searching for their first win of the season. In the second quarter the Warriors gave up a deep pass across the middle of the field for the Thrashers opening score. The touchdown was converted for a 7-0 half-time lead for the home side.

Danny Wilson has admitted his Cardiff Blues side face a massive challenge if they are to make next season’s European Champions Cup. The Blues finished the Guinness Pro12 season in seventh place – earning themselves a play-off spot to lift themselves out of the European Challenge Cup and into the premier tournament.

By Terry Phillips   Michael Flynn will be appointed permanent Newport County manager this week. Flynn kept his home city club in the Football League against all the odds and Gavin Foxall, club chairman of operations, says he did a ‘phenomenal job’. County maintained their League Two status on a dramatic final day of the […]

Bangor City and Cardiff Met will contest the Dafabet Welsh Premier League’s final European place next weekend. Semi-final victories over Newtown and Carmarthen Town respectively leave the two finalists within 90 minutes of a place in the UEFA Europa League qualifying round. Bangor will host next Saturday’s decider at their Bangor University stadium as highest […]

Huddersfield Town 0, Cardiff City 3 More than 500 Bluebirds fans sang and cheered their way through Cardiff City’s final Championship fixture of the season. Huddersfield Town have qualified for the play-offs, but they were left gasping at the way manager Neil Warnock’s team tore them apart. Cardiff supporters, many of them wearing fancy dress, […]

Team Northumbria 60, Celtic Dragons 48 Celtic Dragons suffered on Tyneside in a physical Vitality Netball Superleague match. The teams were separated by only three goals going into the final quarter, but Team Northumbria took control by scoring 19 goals in that session. That that left Dragons bottom of the Superleague table with only one […]

Newport County 2, Notts County 1 Mark O’Brien’s perfect timing sent Newport County fans into a frenzy of wild celebrations at Rodney Parade. The Dublin-born defender smashed home Newport’s winner after 89 minutes of their League Two clash with Notts County and says: “I will remember that moment forever.” Relegation rivals Hartlepool United were leading […]

Martin Olsson insists Swansea City can stay above the relegation zone and survive in the Premier League, now they are back in control of their own destiny. The Swans defender believes Saturday’s 1-0 win over Everton – following Hull City’s shock 2-0 home defeat to Sunderland – has transformed the outlook for the club and the players are determined to make the most of their one-point advantage with two matches to go.

Steve Tandy insists the Ospreys can upset the odds and make the Guinness Pro12 final, despite their record defeat to the Scarlets and a major injury concern over Dan Biggar. Tandy saw his team hammered 40-17 at Parc y Scarlets on Saturday – their fifth defeat in six matches – and they will now travel to face Munster on May 20 in their semi-final.

Cardiff City’s final Championship fixture of the season, at Huddersfield Town on Sunday (Noon) is a match too far for manager Neil Warnock. The Bluebirds end their season by playing Warnock’s former club and he has compared preparing for the game in Yorkshire to ‘extracting teeth’ and says even Huddersfield Town may not be keen […]

Steve Tandy has promised his Ospreys team can ruin Liam Williams’ Scarlets farewell on Saturday by securing their place in the Guinness Pro 12 play-offs. The Ospreys travel to Parc y Scarlets on the final day of the regular season looking to join their neighbours in the knockout stages. Wales full-back and Lions tourist Williams will make his final appearance at his home ground ahead of his summer move to Saracens.

South Wales will be guaranteed a representative in this season’s Dafabet Welsh Premier League Europa League Play-Off final as the league’s two southern clubs go head-to-head in front of the live television cameras on Sunday (2.15). Few would’ve tipped Carmarthen or Cardiff Met to be in the end of season shakedown at the start of […]

A valiant List A career-best and maiden half-century by Cardiff batsman Kiran Carlson (63) was not enough to rescue Glamorgan as they slumped to an embarrassing 170-run defeat at the hands of Somerset in the Royal London One Day Cup at Cardiff. Former Glamorgan captain Jim Allenby came back to haunt the Welsh county as he amassed a career-best 144 not out for the visitors, his maiden century for the Westcountrymen.