Newbridge

In the 1964–65 season, Newbridge went through the Western Mail Championship undefeated and were crowned champions of Wales.

The forward who did most to put Newbridge on the Welsh rugby map was Don Hayward, a prop capped 15 times between 1949 and 1952 and picked for the 1950 Lions tour, remembered as one of the finest Welsh forwards of the post-war years. Flanker Dennis Hughes added six caps either side of 1970, and a run of players through the 1980s and into the early 1990s, Paul Turner among them, kept the club's name on Wales team sheets.

That pull was real: scrum-half Richard Smith went the other way, arriving at the Welfare Ground after spells at Sale Sharks and Cardiff Blues, while Jonathan Westwood moved on from Newbridge Youth and under-21 rugby to the professional ranks. The club has settled into life in the lower tiers of the Welsh pyramid, sharing its ground with the town's cricket club, but 2023 brought the closest thing to a modern echo of 1965: promotion out of WRU League 1 East and a WRU National Division 1 Cup won in the same season. Matches against Bedwas carry the weight of a Caerphilly County Borough derby, sharpened by proximity rather than by silverware.

Between the Ben Francis Cup wins of 2010, 2011, 2022 and 2023 sits a gap of eleven years.