{"id":409842,"date":"2026-01-13T09:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T09:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/409842\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T09:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T09:10:11","slug":"david-richards-from-dragons-commercial-department-to-first-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/409842\/","title":{"rendered":"David Richards: From Dragons commercial department to first team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last season David Richards was trying to put bums on seats as part of Dragons’ commercial department, now he is doing it as a member of Filo Tiatia’s squad.<\/p>\n

The utility back is enjoying a second spell with the Rodney Parade club and made his eighth appearance in the Challenge Cup hammering at Benetton<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Despite a tough evening in Treviso, Richards will hope to feature on Friday when Dragons host Newcastle (20:00 GMT) in the bid for a spot in the knockout stages.<\/p>\n

He was a try scorer last time out in Newport when Scarlets were beaten 28-5 for a third successive home victory.<\/p>\n

The region has not won four on the spin since they enjoyed a five-victory streak under Dean Ryan from December 2019 to February 2020.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old has reaped the rewards of taking a break from the professional game after being plagued by injuries.<\/p>\n

With no contract on the table, Richards took up a role as a new business executive with Dragons while playing for Newport in Super Rygbi Cymru.<\/p>\n

“I found myself with a commercial role, selling hospitality, tickets and what not,” said the former Monmouth School pupil.<\/p>\n

“I enjoyed it and it certainly gave me a new perspective on life and how lucky we are as rugby players to do what we love every single day.<\/p>\n

“A nine-to-five job was a challenge and gave me a new outlook on my rugby. A break from the demands of being a professional player was probably what my body and mind needed.<\/p>\n

“It takes its toll mentally when you have a lot of injuries, so it was just what I needed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last season David Richards was trying to put bums on seats as part of Dragons’ commercial department, now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-409842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}