As the gales of Storm Boelo whipped in off Swansea Bay it was perhaps possible to hear whatever names you fancied being carried on those wild winds. And for many these would have included Sir Garfield Sobers, fallen All Blacks and maybe even that of Dylan Thomas.

With the brutal weather and the relatively lowly crowd, it would have been a stretch to say that St Helen’s was back in the Saturday limelight, but it could not be denied that one of Britain’s most famous grounds had returned to the forefront of the sporting consciousness of Wales’s second biggest city.

The Ospreys came home after a 21-year wait – the region did play one game there in Covid in 2020 – and marked this occasion with a spirited 31-14 win over the Dragons in the United Rugby Championship.

Rugby passions currently rage in this quarter of south-west Wales, with the ongoing threat of the Welsh Rugby Union cutting a region in a controversial overhaul of the faltering domestic game. This was the time for locals to emphasise that in their redeveloped backyard there remains life, hope and certainly defiance.

It was a sell-out and while this “only” amounted to 5,592 with the redevelopment work continuing, the atmosphere somehow managed to penetrate Mother Nature’s worst intentions. Thanks to cricket bidding its farewell to the ground last year, the stands and terraces have been brought closer to the pitch and as Mark Jones, the Ospreys coach, put it: “The players can actually feel it.”

With tarpaulin and scaffolding and a rather naked fanzone covering the town end of the pitch, it is unmistakably rough around so many of its edges, but in an era of the flatpack, sanitised stadia that seems apt for a place with so many claims on sporting legend.

On being the stage for Wales’s first-ever home rugby international against England in 1882. On celebrating Swansea’s success over New Zealand in 1935 (not only the first Welsh team to topple the mighty Kiwis, but also the first club side from anywhere). And, of course, on Sir Garfield’s six sixes in a single over in 1968.

When it was announced two years ago that St Helen’s would bid farewell to cricket, it seemed almost blasphemous and there was considerable anger that 150 years of heritage was being sacrificed, but the city council decided to back the Ospreys as its main tenants and, in a £7m outlay, repurposed the ground.

There had been fears that St Helen’s, which once boasted a capacity of 50,000, could be left to turn to rubble. At the very least, this offered a future, with Swansea RFC and the adjacent university also being beneficiaries.

Alas, when the looming axe from the WRU appeared, this fresh plan was cast into doubt. Cue belligerence and cue Saturday night and the culmination of a remarkable transformation at breakneck pace.

“It’s been like four weeks of DIY SOS here,” Richard Lancaster, Ospreys managing director, said before kick-off. “What has been achieved is nothing short of spectacular.”

Wales is big on identity and Jones believes St Helen’s is vital for whatever his side can save from the WRU upheaval. “We get an opportunity now to put a bit of a marker down around what that looks like for people when they come here to watch the Ospreys, what are they likely to see and what they experience both on and off the field,” he said.

For the first few decades as a region, they had been mere lodgers at the city’s football stadium. “This one truly is our own,” Jones added.

Despite their artificial pitch, the Ospreys will pray for better weather in the forthcoming weeks and months and will try to feed off the mass of folklore. They did exactly that on Saturday.

Ninety eight years ago, a teenager called Dylan Thomas won the mile race at the Swansea Grammar School sports day held at St Helen’s Rugby and Cricket Ground and it was said that the great poet and writer kept the certificate on his person at all times thereafter. This was an evening on which to rage against the dying of the light.