Overall, the season belonged to the Irish provinces with the Ulster taking the Celtic League Championship on the final day of match action with Leinster and Munster following close behind in second and third place respectively. However, the Blues finished top of the four Welsh regions, in fourth place in the final table and, for a significant period of the closing stages of the season, were hot on the heels of the leaders Leinster, getting up to third place in the table and in the thick of the mix of the title challenge.

In yet another change to the Celtic League season, the Celtic Cup was dispensed with altogether. The Welsh regions opting for an Anglo-Welsh flavour to their Cup rugby took up the challenge of occupying one place in each of the four pools of the RFU’s Powergen Cup competition; creating a joint union competition, the Powergen Anglo-Welsh Cup.

The Cup competition’s format of four teams in each pool playing one fixture against each other to a total of three in the pool stages, a semi-final stage pitting two of the four pool winners against each other followed by a grand final made a potential total of five Cup matches for at least two of the four regions in addition to their Celtic and European exploits. The Powergen Cup was played alongside the Celtic League and Heineken Cup competitions across the course of the season and the weekends without the Welsh regions in the Celtic League allowed the Irish provinces and Scottish clubs to play derby matches.

The scoring system was altered for the first time in two seasons in an attempt to address the perceived imbalance in the league table caused by having an uneven number of teams in the competition. Under the new system 4 league points were awarded to the side with a bye weekend.

Each team in the Celtic League had a total of two bye/free weekends across the course of the season which were recorded in an extra column in the league table denoted as 'FW' for ‘free weekend’ and added into the total number of games played for the relevant side. The Celtic League believed that for the first time since the number of participating teams was reduced to eleven, that the change provided a truer reflection of actual league standings.

After two attempts where they had finished bottom of all the Welsh regions and teetered perilously close to the bottom of the entire Celtic League, the Cardiff Blues finally got things right in 2005-2006. Though they lost their opening two matches to Connacht and Ulster, the narrow margins of defeat in those two matches subsequently earning them two losing bonus points in the process, showed some of the grit and fight which was to epitomize better attacking performances from the region across the course of the season, especially in its final third.

With two Irish beatings out of the way, the Blues hosted the Scarlets in their first Welsh derby match and dispensed with the Stradey Park team 20-16. It was in the Welsh derbies that the Blues staged some of their main attacks on the Championship. The Champions, the Ospreys, were comprehensively humbled 9-28 at the Liberty Stadium before the Dragons were put to the sword 41-23 at the Arms Park.

The festive derby against their local rivals took place the day after Boxing Day and saw the Blues concede in the opening minutes but they quickly turned things around in the course of the match. New signing Jonah Lomu who had been with the region for approximately a month, had helped to boost the crowds at the Arms Park in the weeks beforehand, but his impact was as more than just a crowd puller as he went on a scoring run through the Celtic League and in the Dragons match in particular contributed to the defeat of the Newport Gwent region with a try and an assist from the wing.

The Blues stuttered at Stradey Park at the start of the New Year as the Scarlets made up for their early season beating by outscoring the Blues 32-13 in a match that will best be remembered for the ugly scenes involving a fan goading Lomu on the touchline. The Blues’ derby blip was quickly consigned to history as they completed a derby double over the Champions at the Arms Park with a 40-14 victory followed by a narrow 13-18 away victory over the Dragons at Rodney Parade to complete another double.

It was an ill-disciplined match against the Dragons which saw Wales forwards Michael Owen and Robert Sidoli endure ten minutes in the sin bin each, but the encounter made it five wins out of six against the other Welsh regions for the Blues across the season and, taking place in mid-April, saw the Blues leapfrog Munster into third place. With the match also forming part of a late surging run for the Welsh region, there was talk of a title challenge becoming a real prospect.

With the burden of expectation growing on the Welsh region, the home tie against Leinster was switched to the Millennium Stadium on Sunday 14th May 2006, the day after the last ever FA Cup Final at the venue. The fixture switch was intended to produce a bigger crowd and give the Blues a real ‘home’ advantage. It did the job. The Blues not only dispensed with Brian O’Driscoll’s Leinster 40-13, they also broke the Celtic League attendance record with 15,327 spectators watching from the stands at the Millennium Stadium in the process.

Unfortunately, the Blues had seriously damaged their title chances before the Leinster match had even kicked off. The men from Donnybrook were only one of the three sides that the Blues had to face during the run in; Ulster and Munster also lay in wait and ironically also finished above them in the table. Between announcing the Leinster venue switch and playing the match, the Blues travelled to Ulster and were undone 26-17 at Ravenhill by the eventual Champions. The result gave Ulster a chance to pull away and meant that the Blues were dependent on them having a monumental collapse before the season closed whilst also hoping that Leinster and Munster would fall on their swords.

The Leinster result, however, still stiffened the Blues’ resolve to finish as well and as high in the table as possible but with Munster suddenly flying high from their Heineken Cup success and looking to consolidate third place in the table, the Blues didn’t stand much chance of spoiling the party at Thomond Park. In the final match of the season, the Blues’ late surge was extinguished 37-8 by the newly crowned Heineken Cup Champions.

The Blues finished in fourth with 63 points; two points behind Munster, eleven behind Leinster and twelve adrift of the Champions, Ulster. The two late defeats against the Irish provinces had cost them dearly in the final league standings, nonetheless, the performances of the previous two seasons had been well and truly washed away and for at least a short while, the Blues had given the Welsh public and their region a cause for optimism that the Celtic League title would stay in Wales for a third successive season.

The Ospreys finished a disappointing seventh in the overall table with 55 points, third overall amongst the Welsh regions. Whilst their tally of eleven wins and nine losses bettered the Scarlets’ reverse tally of nine wins and eleven losses, the defence of their Celtic League crown left a lot to be desired as they struggled to recreate their previous season’s form at their new home; the Liberty Stadium.

The curtain-raiser to the Celtic League season had overtones for the way the Ospreys’ season would pan out. For the second year running London Wasps took the Anglo-Welsh spoils from the Celtic League Champions and in front of a crowd of 18,000 they defeated the Ospreys 10-18.

The Celtic League season started well for the Ospreys, pipping the eventual title challengers Leinster 22-20 at the Liberty Stadium in their first competitive home match, but from thereon in it was a yo-yo September for Lyn Jones’s men as they crashed 37-10 to Munster at Musgrave Park, defeated the Dragons 15-9 at home and then lost two on the bounce to Border Reivers and Edinburgh away. The Ospreys could at least take salvation from their early home form and they were not beaten at the Liberty in the Celtic League until December 22nd.

The Ospreys’ Welsh derby form ended with three wins and three losses, winning and losing a game against each of the other Welsh regions which accounted for a third of their losses overall during the course of the season, a potential ten points short of their form against the Welsh regions in the previous season.

Another area where the Ospreys suffered compared with the previous season was in their accumulation of bonus points. In their Championship-winning season the Ospreys notched seven high-scoring, four try or more victories and also stifled their opponents in their three defeats ensuring they stayed within seven game points and subsequently earned the losing bonus point on each occasion. This season the Ospreys mustered three in total and in terms of overall game points difference conceded more than they scored.

The failure to compete for the defence of their title meant that the misery of the Ospreys’ season was compounded with Ulster claiming the Celtic League Championship title at the Liberty Stadium in the very last match of the season.

The Scarlets went a second season where they failed to match up to the expectations laid down in their very first season of regional rugby where they had won the Celtic League Championship. The region finished second out of the Welsh regions and in sixth place in total with 57 points; two points ahead of the Ospreys. It was a slip in league placings on the previous season but their form had improved, shaving their number of losing matches by two whilst winning one more match than the previous season. Their draw with Ulster also showed that they were still capable of competing with Championship pedigree as they threatened to derail the eventual Champions late on. The Scarlets also made certain that they finished the season with more points scored than conceded, another improvement on the negative return the previous season had produced.

The Scarlets derby form served them well this season doing the double over the Dragons and avenging an early season defeat to the Blues away by comprehensively defeating the highest Welsh finisher 32-13 at the start of the New Year at Stradey Park. The Scarlets also won and lost a match a piece against the Ospreys.

Away from the Celtic League, the Scarlets made it two Cup Finals in a row as the WRU and Welsh regions’ decision to enter the Powergen Cup was vindicated by the appearance of the Scarlets in the Final at Twickenham. However, losing to London Wasps coupled with failure to progress from the Pool Stages of the Heineken Cup for a second successive season meant that the mid-table finish in the Celtic League adequately reflected their overall season form.

The Dragons faired most harshly amongst the Welsh regions dropping four places in the final league table on the previous season and were left with the burden of having to qualify for the Heineken Cup through the play-offs; a feat they were unable to pull off. Though they didn’t finish bottom they did finish as the lowest placed Welsh side in the competition and mustered only seven wins to thirteen league defeats giving them 45 points.

The other Welsh regions did a huge percentage of the damage, inflicting five defeats on the region out of the six derby matches played. The Dragons did manage to take points from the Ospreys towards the end of the season but it a double dose of misery was dished out by the Scarlets and the Blues. Kevin Morgan’s top try-scoring season of 2004-2005 was a distant memory as he sustained an injury mid-season and ended up out of the reckoning for the remainder.

The Dragons did serve up a few shocks along the way; they had threatened to shock the eventual Heineken Cup Champions Munster during the Pool stages of the competition at Rodney Parade in December and in the Celtic League they made good on that threat defeating them 23-17 and putting one of the dents in their title challenge. The Dragons also took points from second place Leinster and missed out on narrowly beating the eventual Champions, Ulster, at Rodney Parade.

With Ulster lifting the trophy, the Celtic League title left Wales for the first time since the beginning of regionalism and returned to the country where it had resided in the first two seasons of the overall Celtic League Championship. The Welsh regions had had to compete on an extra front with the Powergen Cup but the push for the title by the Blues had shown that the regional project was developing well and that any team with the right application in the league could head towards mounting a consistent challenge to win the tournament.