Pontypridd

Pontypridd go into this campaign in the Welsh Premiership having finished runners-up in 2024–25 and, more to the point, having lifted the WRU Challenge Cup that same season, beating Cross Keys 43-12. A club that has stayed in the top flight of Welsh club rugby since that league began in 1990 does not measure a season by survival; it measures it against the cup and against Cardiff, the derby that still gets called a nervy one.

The club's own first match goes back to 1873, against Roath, three years before the date usually given for its founding. What has carried Pontypridd since is less the honours list than the academy: a production line that has sent players straight from Sardis Road into Wales shirts and Lions squads. The Principality Premiership was won four years running, from 2011–12 to 2014–15, and the Challenge Cup itself has come back to Ynysangharad more times than any single season suggests, most recently this year.

Sardis Road, on the bank of the River Rhondda, earned its "House of Pain" nickname long before the Celtic Warriors borrowed the ground for a season in 2003. Black shirts with thin white hoops go back further still, to grounds at Taff Vale Park and People's Park before the move to Sardis Road in 1974.

No name from that academy carries more weight than Neil Jenkins. He made 150 appearances for Ponty, went on to 100 caps for Wales and two Lions tours, in 1997 and 2001, and remains the player by whom every kicker who has followed him through Pontypridd is measured.