There is a tired old joke that gets re-told around this time of year.

‘What are they judging?’ someone will quip with a smirk.

While it is not a very funny joke, the meaning behind it is often fair. Judgement Day – Welsh rugby’s showpiece afternoon of back-to-back derbies – has the ability to blend into the background.

Rugby’s packed schedule means that Judgement Day is often placed just after the Six Nations and the first rounds of the European knockouts. The previous three months of intense rugby takes its toll and therefore teams are weakened by injury and fatigue.

Each of the four teams on Saturday April 19th were shorn of important players: for Ospreys, Justin Tipuric, Adam Beard, Morgan Morris and Rhys Davies were out; Rey Lee-lo and Mason Grady were missed by Cardiff; Scarlets were without Sam Costelow and Johnny Williams; and Dragons missed Huw Anderson and Rio Dyer.

Coupled with the fact that the ‘biggest’ Welsh derbies – Scarlets vs Ospreys and Dragons vs Cardiff – are always played in front of partisan crowds at the regions’ home grounds and not at the Principality Stadium, these days can often drift into exercises in seeing who is in form and in the frame for an international call-up.

However, with 2025 being the tenth edition of Judgement Day, one cannot help but dwell on the changes in Welsh rugby in the twelve years since its inception.

On the pitch in 2013, Wales were still celebrating a second Six Nations title in successive campaigns. In 2025, the team ‘won’ the wooden spoon for a second year in a row.

Off the pitch, Welsh rugby is in crisis mode.

Most of the build up to Saturday’s match concerned Cardiff Rugby, who a week earlier had called in the administrators after their owners – Phil Kempe and Neal Griffith of Helford Capital Limited – had failed to uphold key contractual requirements agreed to when they bought the club in January 2023.

Thankfully, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) were in a position to take short-term control of the club and prevent any job losses.

However, adding at least some of the weight of Cardiff’s reported £9million debts to their own precarious financial load is not what WRU chief executive Abi Tierney would have wanted.

Tierney, prior to the Cardiff crisis, was busy negotiating with the Welsh regions to sign the long-term agreement called the ‘One Wales’ strategy by the WRU.

Cardiff, having been taken over by the WRU, have agreed to it, but the deadline passed in the week before Judgement Day without Scarlets, Ospreys, or Dragons signing the deal.

The ‘One Wales’ campaign is the WRU’s new strategy to lift Welsh rugby back to something like where it was upon the advent of Judgement Day in 2013: Six Nations champions and ranked 5th in the world.

The plan, according to the WRU, is set to save the Union £5million annually and allow the regions’ funding to be raised from £4.5m to £6.8m in 2029.

The WRU have conceded that a ‘small number’ of losses will occur within the organisation in order to make the Union a ‘fully functional, fit-for-purpose, professional organisation.’

“Everything we are doing is to improve rugby in Wales for everyone,” Tierney said when announcing the ‘One Wales’ strategy.

“Last summer we confirmed our strategic trajectory, where we intend to be by 2029, and today we are giving further details of how we are going to get there.

“The world game may have turned professional in 1995 but 2025 will be the moment we remember Welsh rugby completed this transformation, into a fully functional, fit-for-purpose, professional organisation.”

However, without the regions signing the new Professional Rugby Agreement (PRA25), Welsh rugby remains in stasis.

On the pitch, there is plenty to be hopeful about. With playing budgets cut, younger players have been given more experience earlier than they would have in previous years.

With three of the four clubs still in the hunt for the United Rugby Championship (URC) play-offs, 2025’s Judgement Day had sporting and symbolic significance.

Ospreys and Cardiff contested the first match of the afternoon, with the Swansea-based Ospreys the home side in an odd quirk.

After Keiran Williams opened the scoring for Ospreys, Cardiff dominated.

Head coach Matt Sherratt had admitted that the events around the club had been ‘unsettling’ for his squad, but on the pitch at the national stadium his side looked anything but.

Four answered tries in the first half gave the capital region a 7-22 lead at halftime that proved unassailable. Ospreys rallied in the second period and tries from replacements Will Spencer and Kieran Hardy made it tight, before Gabe Hamer-Webb completed his hattrick in the dying minutes.

For Mark Jones’s Ospreys, their season has ended as quickly as it started. Two defeats in the URC have put them seven points behind eighth in the table and only three games remaining. On the flip side, Cardiff will welcome Munster to an emotional Cardiff Arms Park with a play-off spot within reach.

Similar to Cardiff, Scarlets’ bonus point victory over Dragons has kept them in the play-off hunt after a winter wobble.

Dragons, who have won just one game all season, looked set to double their tally when Jared Rosser’s second try of the game gave them a 20-7 lead shortly after halftime, but a Vaea Fifita-inspired Scarlets came back well.

Fifita’s try was excellent, while Blair Murray’s was industrious. Unfortunately for the Dragons, losing has become a habit.

28,328 fans were in attendance at the Principality Stadium for the weekend’s action, which is the lowest Judgement Day crowd held at the national stadium.

With the search on for a new men’s head coach, investors at Cardiff Rugby, and the beginning of a new strategy still to be ratified, the only way is up for Welsh rugby. And with green shoots on the pitch, perhaps momentum is growing.

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