Sheedy Goes Viral

Callum Sheedy has pretty much seen and done it all during his playing career, but there has been a real first for him this week.

The Welsh international fly-half went viral following his header during Cardiff Rugby’s 21-15 Vodacom URC victory away to the Scarlets last weekend.

Clips of the unusual incident have been watched more than 800,000 times on social media and have provoked countless comments with opinion divided on whether it was legal or not.

Sheedy admits he’s unsure on that score himself as he reflects on just what he was thinking as he chased his own kick during the second half in Llanelli.

“I probably wasn’t thinking, that was the problem!” he said.

“I remember the ball sitting up and I could see Blair (Murray) coming towards me and I thought it was going to be an aerial contest.

“I thought there needed to be a way of me getting the ball past him and there wasn’t enough time to get it down to my foot, so the nearest body part was my head. It all happened so fast.

“I’ve had a laugh, looking back at the video, and the boys have given me a bit of stick.”

The 17-times capped Sheedy says he has been surprised by how the footage went viral.

“I didn’t actually think about it at the time. Then, after the game, I went on my phone and my Instagram had blown up a bit. I’m glad people are enjoying it.”

Cardiff trailed three times during the hard-fought contest but, in the end, they secured the spoils.

“It was a far from perfect performance,” admits Sheedy.

“But coming away with a win was massive.

“Four points away in a derby first game of the season, you’d be mad not to take that.”

Now they head into their first home league game of the season with Zebre Parma the visitors to the Arms Park on Friday night.

“I’m really excited to get out there,” said the Cardiff-born Sheedy.

“Last season, we only lost one game there. We made it a bit of a fortress.

“Hopefully we get a big crowd. I remember last year there were a lot of close games and a lot of the time in the last 10 minutes the crowd really got us over the line.

“So I’m really hoping the supporters come out in their numbers and do it again.

“It does make a big difference.

“Until you are out there, you don’t realise.

“When there’s five minutes to go and you are blowing and you hear that Cardiff chant it just gives you that little two per cent extra to push.

“I can’t talk highly enough of how good the fans were last season.

“When we are attacking or defending our line and you hear that buzz around the stadium, it gives you that little bit of juice.

“I remember defending sets towards the end of games last season and you are cooked and you have got to work that bit harder because you know you have got 10 or 11,000 people there with you.”

Sheedy, who turns 31 later this month, now has added competition for the No 10 jersey with Jarrod Evans having returned to the club from Harlequins, while a third Welsh international, Ioan Lloyd, is also in the mix.

“All I can do as a player is try my best and perform the best I can,” he said.

“We all want to be number one, so how we go about that is going to be challenging because we’re all going to want to play. I’m sure it’ll be healthy competition.”