Richard Hibbard (born 13 December 1983) is a retired Wales international rugby union player who last played for the Dragons.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (May 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 6,164 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Richard Hibbard]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Richard Hibbard}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Date of birth, Place of birth ...

Richard Hibbard

Date of birth	(1983-12-13) 13 December 1983 (age 40)
Place of birth	Neath, Wales
Height	1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	123 kg (271 lb; 19 st 5 lb)
School	Glan Afan Comprehensive School
Rugby league career
Senior career Years Team Apps (Points) 2003 Aberavon Fighting Irish () International career Years Team Apps (Points) 2003 Wales A (Dragonhearts) 1 ()
Rugby union career
Position(s) Hooker Amateur team(s) Years Team Apps (Points) Taibach RFC () Senior career Years Team Apps (Points) 2003–2008 2006–2009 2014–2018 Swansea Aberavon Gloucester 88 3 100 (65) (5) (55) Correct as of 7 April 2017 Provincial / State sides Years Team Apps (Points) 2004–2014 2018– Ospreys Dragons 175 59 (50) (3) Correct as of 23 March 2020 International career Years Team Apps (Points) 2006– 2013 Wales British & Irish Lions 38 3 (10) (0) Correct as of 8 August 2015

Close

Hibbard was born in Neath, Wales. He is married, with three children. A hooker, he started playing rugby union at age grade levels at clubs in the town of Port Talbot, including Aberavon Quins RFC and Taibach RFC. A former pupil of Glan Afan Comprehensive School, he went on to play at senior level for Taibach, Aberavon RFC and Swansea before making his name at the Ospreys.

He also played rugby league for Aberavon Fighting Irish and made one appearance for the Wales A rugby league team in their 28–18 win over England A in Aberavon in 2003.

Hibbard attained his first Wales cap against Argentina in June 2006. Hibbard missed the 2011 Rugby World Cup through injury.^[1]

He was named as part of the Lions squad for the 2013 British & Irish Lions tour to Australia and won caps in all three test matches, starting the third and decisive match.^[2]

On 16 December 2013, it was announced that Hibbard would join Gloucester Rugby in the English Aviva Premiership on a three-year contract from the 2014–15 season.^[3]

On 18 December 2017 it was confirmed Hibbard would return to Wales to sign for regional side Dragons on a three-year contract in the Pro14 from the 2018–19 season.^[4]

In recent times (2021), Richard Hibbard expanded even further than his rugby career, whereby he opened two successful restaurants including The Hideout Cafe at Aberavon Shopping Centre & The Front at Aberavon Beach, Port Talbot.

In January 2022, Hibbard announced his retirement from rugby. In April 2024 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Wales Rugby League.^[5]