Heol Sardis | |
House of Pain [1] | |
Location | Pontypridd, Wales |
---|---|
Coordinates | 51°36′5″N3°20′53″W / 51.60139°N 3.34806°W |
Owner | Ponty Rugby Limited |
Capacity | 7,861 |
Surface | Artificial Grass / 3G |
Opened | September 1974 |
Tenants | |
Pontypridd RFC (1974-present) Celtic Warriors (2003-2004) |
Sardis Road (Welsh : Heol Sardis) is a rugby union stadium situated in Pontypridd, Wales. It is home to the Indigo Group Premiership team, Pontypridd RFC and previously the Celtic Warriors, the now defunct regional rugby union team. It is commonly known as the "House of Pain".
Pontypridd RFC originally played their games at Taff Vale Park in Treforest, later they moved to the People's Park before finally moving to the Sardis Road ground. It was officially opened in September 1974 and currently holds 7,861 spectators. [2]
It has been host to Argentina verses Western Samoa in the 1991 Rugby World Cup in which Argentina lost 12–35.
The Celtic Warriors used Sardis Road between 2003–2004, however with their demise, Pontypridd RFC have become a semi-professional club and Sardis Road has been mooted as being too big for the crowds that attend their matches. [3] A planning application for a retail store on the Sardis Road ground was turned down by the National Assembly for Wales. The owners of Sardis Road, Ponty Rugby Limited had hoped to sell the ground to a property developer, Morbaine Limited. It was envisaged that a new 3,000 seater stadium would be funded from the sale of the Sardis Road ground.
In 2009, Sardis Road hosted the Wales versus Ireland rugby league semi-final of the European Cup. [4]
The Celtic Warriors were a rugby union team from Wales, who played in the 2003–04 Celtic League and the 2003–04 Heineken Cup following the introduction of regional rugby union teams in Wales. They were effectively a temporary merger of Pontypridd RFC and Bridgend RFC. The Celtic Warriors played just one season before disbanding.
The Ospreys, formerly the Neath–Swansea Ospreys is one of the four professional rugby union teams from Wales. They compete in the United Rugby Championship and the European Rugby Champions Cup. The team formed as a result of Neath RFC and Swansea RFC combining to create a new merged entity, as part of the new regional structure of Welsh rugby, that began in 2003. They are also affiliated with a number of local semi-professional and amateur clubs, including Welsh Premier Division sides Aberavon RFC, Bridgend Ravens, and original founding clubs Neath and Swansea. The regional area represented by the team has widely become known for rugby purposes as 'Ospreylia'.
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Pontypridd Rugby Football Club is a rugby union team from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. It won the Indigo Group Premiership for four consecutive seasons between 2012 and 2015, and the WRU National Cup on 6 different occasions, the most recent being in 2014.
Gethin Jenkins is a Welsh former professional rugby union player who played as a prop for Pontypridd, Celtic Warriors, Cardiff Blues and Toulon. At international level, he won 129 caps for Wales. On his 105th appearance in 2014, he became Wales' most-capped player, overtaking the record held by Stephen Jones; having earned his final cap in November 2016, his record was surpassed by Alun Wyn Jones in September 2019. He is one of a small group of Welsh players to have won three Grand Slams. He also won five caps for the British & Irish Lions on three tours in 2005, 2009 and 2013. He is the sixth most-capped player in rugby union history and the second most-capped front-row forward.
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