{"id":802759,"date":"2026-10-14T22:18:38","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T22:18:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802759\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T22:18:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T22:18:38","slug":"ben-thomas-cardiff-centre-to-miss-start-of-nations-championship-for-wales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802759\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Thomas: Cardiff centre to miss start of Nations Championship for Wales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Whether Faletau proves his fitness remains to be seen after another false start before Cardiff&#8217;s 29-5 United Rugby Championship (URC) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cm5yn2ng799po\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defeat against Leinster<\/a> in Dublin last Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Faletau was named in their starting line-up on Thursday afternoon, although van Zyl admitted the Wales number eight still had a few boxes to tick because of niggles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Just before kick-off on Saturday, Cardiff made the call not to field the 35-year-old for the first time since a shoulder injury suffered at Sharks in March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He was probably just a little bit uncomfortable in himself and the way he felt about his readiness to play the game,&#8221; said van Zyl.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;That&#8217;s always what we say about players being honest and that&#8217;s the way I want to approach everything. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There are no major concerns in terms of long-term injuries or not being available potentially this week.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When asked whether he will play in the next couple of weeks, van Zyl replied: &#8220;I believe so, 100%, That&#8217;s definitely the plan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Whether that is enough for Tandy to consider the three times British and Irish Lions tourist remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Before Wales meet up, Cardiff have two games, with an away trip to play Northampton on Sunday in Europe&#8217;s Champions Cup opener before hosting Sharks five days later in the URC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether Faletau proves his fitness remains to be seen after another false start before Cardiff&#8217;s 29-5 United Rugby&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-802759","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\/802759","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=802759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}