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Che Hope goes over for the first of his two tries(Image: Gareth Everett\/Huw Evans Agency)<\/p>\nWales’ scrum-halves have been a fairly established group in recent years, with few breaking throughChe Hope goes over for the first of his two tries(Image: Gareth Everett\/Huw Evans Agency)<\/p>\n
Scrum-half has been something of a slow-moving position in Welsh rugby over the past decade.<\/p>\n
Where other areas of the team have resembled a revolving door, just eight men have worn the nine jersey in the last decade. Another couple have been bench options.<\/p>\n
But it’s not an area where debutants are coming through thick and fast.<\/p>\n
There was a four-year gap between Kieran Hardy and Ellis Bevan being capped, with Reuben Morgan-Williams joining them in the summer.<\/p>\n
Tomos Williams is the undisputed first-choice, with Hardy and Morgan-Williams currently his deputies.<\/p>\n
There’s been an established set of nines for some time. Just looking at the scrum-halves starting on Boxing Day, you had Gareth Davies, Aled Davies and Hardy – 34,33 and 30 respectively.<\/p>\n
The outlier was Che Hope. The Dragons half-back is just 22 – a young man in a position dominated by experience.<\/p>\n
His back-up on the bench is Rhodri Williams, a vastly experienced option who even forced his way back into Test rugby in recent seasons after a decade away.<\/p>\n
Starts have been a rarity for Hope in his fledgling career, playing second fiddle to Williams so far.<\/p>\n
The Boxing Day clash with Cardiff<\/a> was just his sixth senior start for the Dragons and only his third in the league.<\/p>\n And yet, a week after crossing for two tries against Connacht at Rodney Parade, he once again went over for a double in a well-rounded performance.<\/p>\n Not only were there the usual scrum-half cheat lines for his two scores – both set up by Rio Dyer – but there were some decent box-kicks in the first-half when the wind was blowing against the Dragons.<\/p>\n “He’s been excellent,” said former Wales scrum-half Richie Rees on BBC’s coverage. “We’ve been watching him a lot over the last 18 months.<\/p>\n “It’s his perception of where the ruck is going to be, where the ball is going to be. He’s electric.<\/p>\n “He’s a bit of a young Tomos Williams. He plays a bit off the cuff and he’s got a very, very good skillset.”<\/p>\n After a fairly torrid 2025, the Dragons are turning something of a corner.<\/p>\n Back-to-back wins over Lyon and Connacht were followed by a close one against Cardiff, with plenty of fight shown.<\/p>\n Hope’s X-factor around the park is certainly helping, with head coach Filo Tiatia – albeit in his understated way – saying the scrum-half has been “good for us”.<\/p>\n It’s still early days, but Hope looks like the Dragons’ nine jersey could soon be his on a permanent basis.<\/p>\n From there, he’ll be well-placed to challenge the status quo when it comes to Wales’ scrum-half pecking order.<\/p>\n Follow all of our channels to ensure you stay up to date with the latest Welsh rugby news. Sign up to our free daily newsletter here<\/a> and our WhatsApp channel here<\/a> for all the breaking news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wales’ scrum-halves have been a fairly established group in recent years, with few breaking throughChe Hope goes over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[26923,5903,101,56,54,55,9015],"class_list":["post-337852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-dragons","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wales-rugby-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337852","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=337852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}