{"id":312900,"date":"2025-12-12T23:18:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T23:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/312900\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T23:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T23:18:14","slug":"owen-watkin-wales-centre-back-for-ospreys-after-11-hard-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/312900\/","title":{"rendered":"Owen Watkin: Wales centre back for Ospreys after 11 hard months"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Watkin was injured playing his 43rd international for Wales and hopes to return to the highest level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m still only 29, still pretty young but think I&#8217;ve got a lot of experience now,&#8221; said Watkin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I just want to get back playing, find a bit of form and see what happens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;d love to get back in the red jersey one day and don&#8217;t want that game in France to be my last one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m still massively motivated to do that but the main point is get back playing, enjoy it and stay fit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Watkin is also involved in an Ospreys side battling for its survival with question marks over the future of many of its top players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) is determined to cut one of the professional teams with the governing body stating they propose to grant three licences for men&#8217;s clubs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There will be one in Cardiff, one in the east and one in the west, which is expected to result in a straight survival fight between Ospreys and Scarlets in Llanelli.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Another option that has now emerged is Ospreys owners, Y11 Sport &amp; Media, taking over WRU-owned Cardiff, which could produce the WRU&#8217;s desired number of three professional sides.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of tough things going on in Welsh rugby at the minute, but to be an Ospreys player, the tightness of the group is one thing that doesn&#8217;t change,&#8221; said Watkin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We are a team that is always going to look after each other in the highs and the lows, we are always there for each other.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Watkin is joined on the replacements bench by number eight Morgan Morris who has been sidelined since April. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ospreys are missing rested Wales stars Dewi Lake, Gareth Thomas, Dan Edwards, Reuben Morgan-Williams, Rhys Davies, James Ratti and Harri Deaves, with fly-half Jac Walsh leading the side.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Montauban include former Scarlets back rower Vaea Fifita in the starting side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watkin was injured playing his 43rd international for Wales and hopes to return to the highest level. &#8220;I&#8217;m&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-312900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}