{"id":707912,"date":"2026-07-23T23:47:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T23:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707912\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T23:47:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T23:47:14","slug":"recently-retired-wales-legend-leigh-halfpenny-confirms-club-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707912\/","title":{"rendered":"Recently retired Wales legend Leigh Halfpenny confirms club future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>  Published: 12 hours ago | 23 July 2026 06:57 EDT  <br \/> Updated: 12 hours ago | 23 July 2026 06:58 EDT  <\/p>\n<p>mens<\/p>\n<p>united-rugby-championship<\/p>\n<p>    Leigh Halfpenny of Wales is congratulated by Neil Jenkins his kicking coach during the International match between Wales and Barbarians at Principality Stadium on November 04, 2023 in Cardiff, Wales. (Photo by Huw Fairclough\/Getty Images) <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"expand\" src=\"https:\/\/eu-cdn.rugbypass.com\/images\/common-svg\/select-arrow.svg\" height=\"6\" width=\"11\"\/>      <a href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rugbypass.com%2F\" onclick=\"GATracking.sendDataLayerEvent(&#039;preferredsourcegoogle&#039;);\" aria-label=\"Google Prefered Source\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/google_preferred_source_badge_light.png\" alt=\"Google Prefered Source\" width=\"141\" height=\"44\" class=\"google-source\"\/> <\/a>     <\/p>\n<p>Leigh Halfpenny, who hung up his boots at the end of last season, will remain at Cardiff Arms Park next season after being appointed first-team kicking coach and skills coach within the academy set-up. <\/p>\n<p>Halfpenny, 37, recently helped <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/wales\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wales<\/a> as a kicking coach for the first three rounds of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/nations-championship\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nations Championship<\/a> and scored 570 points in 90 appearances for the Blue &amp; Blacks.<\/p>\n<p>He won 101 caps for Wales, three <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/six-nations\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Six Nations<\/a> titles, including two Grand Slams, and sits third on the all-time men\u2019s points list with 801 and admits that the club means a huge amount to him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am thrilled to join Cardiff on a full-time basis. It is a club that means a huge amount to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Arms Park as I continued my transition from player to coach last season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a great group of players, who I enjoyed working with last season, and I believe I can add value to the group, while also helping the young players coming through.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a huge honour to work with Wales again this summer. I\u2019m extremely grateful for the opportunity, and I\u2019m looking forward to bringing that experience back to the club,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Cardiff head coach Corniel van Zyl believes Halfpenny, who toured three times with the Lions, winning the Player of the Series in 2013, can help drive standards as the club continues to grow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really pleased that Leigh is joining the backroom staff as kicking coach. It is clear from last year\u2019s work that all of our kickers improved.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is so professional and diligent in everything he does, so now moving into a full-time role, I am excited to see the impact he will have. He will work with all of our kickers, from goal-kicking and touch-kicking to our scrum-halves and their technique.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he will also work within the academy, which will be really beneficial for his growth and development as a coach. He has a great future as a coach, and we are looking forward to welcoming him back to the Arms Park following another great experience with the national squad,\u201d added van Zyl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 12 hours ago | 23 July 2026 06:57 EDT Updated: 12 hours ago | 23 July 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-707912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707912","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=707912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}