The club also runs one of the five Welsh rugby academies, age group teams and the semi professional Cardiff RFC side, affectionately nicknamed "The Rags",[11] which competes in Super Rygbi Cymru.

Several former Cardiff players including Gwyn Nicholls, Bleddyn Williams, Cliff Morgan, Gareth Edwards, Barry John and Gerald Davies are also members of the Hall of Fame.

In 1904, Cardiff players fly-half Percy Bush, centre Rhys Gabe (who later captained Wales in 1907) and Arthur 'Boxer' Harding all went on the Lions tour to Australia and New Zealand (Nicholls was not selected).

Harding was selected as the first Cardiff player to captain the tour and was the only one of the four to have played for the Lions before, the other three being uncapped half-back Willie Morgan, and three-quarters Johnny Williams and Reggie Gibbs.

Morgan, in front of a then-world record crowd of 100,000, helped defeat the South Africans 23–22 with a brilliant try despite an injury to Reg Higgins reducing the Lions to 14 men (no replacements were allowed at this time).

Australia played against and were defeated by Cardiff for the third time in 1957, 14–11 thanks to two great tries from Gordon Wells, after which a reporter from the Sydney Daily Telegraph wrote "we fell to the world's best rugby union club", and another unofficial championship title was secured in 1957–58, but only second row Bill "Roddy" Evans was selected for the Lions in 1959, although he started four of the six Tests.

[42] In the 1977–78 club season, Davies had a fantastic game against Pontypool where despite only touching the ball four times due to the dominance of the Pooler pack, he scored four tries, with those being Cardiff's only points in a 16–11 victory.

Cardiff had been knocked in the quarter-finals of the 1982–83 cup by eventual winners Pontypool,[39] but made it up for it with a third triumph in four years, beating Neath 24–19 in the final with tries from flanker Owen Golding and wing Gerald Cordle and 16 points from Gareth Davies.

1985 was very nearly another successful year for the club, beating Neath and Pontypool on their way to the Schweppes Cup final where, despite tries from wing Gerald Cordle and captain Alan Phillips alongside two penalties from Gareth Davies, they fell to an agonising 15–14 defeat to Llanelli.

But a late drop goal from full-back Mike Rayer won it for the Arms Park side capping one of the most successful periods in the club's history, with five Schweppes Cup victories in seven years.

Cardiff's success began to tail off towards the end of the 1980s, with Adrian Hadley leaving for rugby league in 1988 and Gerald Cordle following in 89, and they could only manage two Cup quarter-finals and one semi-final appearance in the last three years of the decade.

It allowed them to sign legendary outside-half Jonathan Davies back from rugby league, and another major change was that there would be a European Cup, sponsored by Heineken, containing teams from France, Ireland, Wales, Italy and Romania (England and Scotland did not join for another year).

However, after Alex Evans returned to head up the coaching team, that season did lead to some silverware, as Cardiff beat Llanelli 36–26 in the semi-final and Swansea 33–26 in the final of the SWALEC Cup.

Grzegorz Kacala and Tony Rees, both forwards part of the Brive team that knocked Cardiff out of the Heineken Cup and went on to win it, were signed for 1997/98 along with Wales internationals Steve Williams and Spencer John (Gareth Thomas also arrived in December from Bridgend).

[61] Swansea went on to beat Llanelli 37–10 in the cup final, but the rebels were still forced to sign loyalty agreements and return to Welsh domestic setup, now including Edinburgh and Glasgow.

[62] After the rebel season, Cardiff signed British Lion outside-half Neil Jenkins, as well as Wales internationals second-row Craig Quinnell and flanker Martyn Williams.

The start of the 1999–2000 season for Cardiff was hampered by them missing 13 first choice players due to the World Cup, and in late September they fell to a humiliating 60–18 defeat away to Llanelli at Stradey Park.

Cardiff were drawn into the smaller, seven-team pool (with four teams going through to the quarter-finals).and started their campaign in unconvincing fashion, winning three games but still being knocked out of the competition on points difference.

But over the two seasons running up to what became known as Welsh rugby's "regionalisation",[84] cut backs had been made at the Arms Park and high-profile players like Gareth Thomas, Jonathan Humphreys, Rob Howley and Neil Jenkins had left.

[91] Finishing in 9th position in the 2004-05 Celtic League meant that to qualify for the Heineken Cup, Cardiff had to compete in a play-off game against the third place Italian side Arix Viadana.

More signings, including former New Zealand fullback Ben Blair,[100] alongside some talented academy graduates (notably Bradley Davies[96] and Tom James)[96] further enhanced the quality of the Cardiff Blues squad for the 2006–07 season.

[106] For the second season in a row, Cardiff Blues finished second in the Celtic League and were eliminated at the pool stage of the Anglo Welsh Cup, despite taking Bath's 12 month unbeaten home record.

[131] Lower attendances and a failure to progress in either the Heineken Cup or Magners League meant turnover fell to £7.4m,[132] while added player and coaching costs led to the total employment bill rising to £6.7m.

In June 2011, Dai Young would step down in order to join Wasps RFC,[133] bringing an end to nine years as Head Coach and Director of Rugby after a playing career that had begun in 1988.

[144] Over the next two seasons a number of long serving and high-profile players would retire or leave for other clubs, including Gethin Jenkins, T Rhys Thomas, Casey Laulala Ben Blair Martyn Williams, Xavier Rush, Paul Tito, Maama Molitika Deiniol Jones Jamie Roberts Michael Paterson Tom James Leigh Halfpenny Ceri Sweeney and Bradley Davies.

These included the 1980s Cardiff hero Mark Ring,[150] Pontypridd icon Dale McIntosh (nicknamed "The Chief") and young former London Broncos coach Rob Powell.

Fundraising efforts managed to secure for Williams a purpose-built house and the Stay Strong For Ows Foundation has continued to raise money and draw attention to the plight of players, who experience life changing injuries.

[165] For his second season, Wilson was able to add strong new signings like Willis Halaholo and Nick Williams as well as replace Paul John with his former Bristol colleague Matt Sherratt.

[202] The team Rees dubbed his "misfits" therefore took the field against Toulouse at the Arms Park with a primary school teacher (Evan Yardley), groundsman (Rowan Jenkins) and recruitment consultant (Alex Everett) amongst the part time players in the 23 man squad.

Past graduates of the Cardiff academy system include Sam Warburton Jamie Roberts Tomos Williams Leigh Halfpenny Ellis Jenkins Josh Navidi and Rhys Patchell.