Shot putters Aled Davies and Michael Jenkins rounded off a hugely successful World Para Athletics Championships for Welsh athletes, as Owen Morgan reports.

Cardiff head coach Matt Sherratt was upbeat but unsatisfied after seeing his team start their season with a win that became less convincing the nearer they got to the final whistle. The Blue and Blacks kicked-off their season with a bonus-point win over Zebre – their first at the Arms Park this year.

As Cardiff kick-off their new season on Friday night, head coach Matt Sherratt insists he will be calling the shots at the Arms Park – not Warren Gatland. With a host of youngsters having been fast-tracked into the Wales squad over the past 12 months, it might be tempting to believe Sherratt is under pressure to accommodate all requests.

For Matt Sherratt, there’s the sense of a new beginning as he embarks on his second season as Cardiff’s head coach. It’s been a summer of major change at the Arms Park both on and off the field and he is hoping that will now extend to his team’s results as they look to turn those narrow defeats into victories – starting with Friday night’s BKT URC opener at home to Zebre Parma.

Aled Davies has admitted he is finding it hard to offer an explanation for his failure to win a fourth Paralympic gold medal. Wales’ greatest current Paralympian was unable to follow up his titles of the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Games and had to settle for shot put silver in Paris on a final weekend where Laura Sugar took gold in para canoeing and Phil Pratt earned a silver in wheelchair basketball.

All four Welsh regions will be in action this weekend (Saturday, 31 August) as the big build-up to the new season gathers pace. The Ospreys will welcome Aberavon, Bridgend and Swansea to the Swansea.Com Stadium for their innovative ‘Origin Series’, which will include three 30 minute matches against the new Super Rygbi Cymru teams in their reg

Creative director Thomas Jolly has some lofty goals for Wednesday’s opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, when the heart of Paris will once again become the stage for a stunning artistic display. The outdoor ceremony at the Champs-Elysees and Place de La Concorde — a site where several members of the royal family were beheaded during the French Revolution — is aiming to challenge and reshape society’s perceptions of disabilities.

Aled Davies will head the Welsh contingent heading for Paris and the start of the Paralympic Games in Paris next week. The shot and discus thrower will compete at his fourth Paralympics for Great Britain and defend his F42 shot put title he won in Tokyo three years ago.

Aled Davies won the 10th world title of his glittering para career after claiming his sixth successive F63 shot put gold in Kobe.

Kieffer Moore and Nathan Broadhead are the Tractor Boys who can plough Wales to the Euro 2024 play-off final on Thursday night. That’s the prediction of Wales manager Rob Page as he prepares his team to face Finland in the crunch semi-final at Cardiff City Stadium.

Matthew Hirst won the Get Jerky Rally North Wales for the fourth time in a row, when he dominated the opening round of the Motorsport UK Pirelli Welsh Rally Championship in his Delta Salvage/Witham Motorsport Ford Fiesta R5 last weekend. Co-driven by Declan Dear, the Doncaster ace set the fastest time through the morning’s loop of four stages through Gartheiniog, Dyfi, Dyfnant West and Dyfnant East forests to reach mid-day service 1min 34sec ahead of his nearest rival.

Warren Gatland had joined the growing band of voices calling for an Anglo-Welsh League. The Wales head coach believes the RFU and the WRU need to come together to alliance to re-establish the old traditional rivalries that players and fans have always revelled.