Toby Booth joined the Ospreys because he felt they were an iconic team based in an area with a passion for the game.
He relished the prospect of working with young talent and players with a lot of international experience.
It was, he said when he took the job in 2020, an “extremely attractive proposition”.
He hasn’t been disappointed with the Llandarcy-based region.
But what of the chaos of Welsh rugby? What of a world where there is never peace, where there are proposals that would make the four professional sides uncompetitive and see players and staff as casualties amid potential pay cuts and possible job losses? Where the talk is of player strikes rather than strikes against the head?
Booth has steered the Ospreys into the knockout stages of the Heineken Champions Cup after a double over French champions Montpellier and a victory over English title holders Leicester. How frustrating is the situation in which the Welsh game finds itself in?
“I think you probably know the answer to that,” he said at the Ospreys’ press call ahead of their United Rugby Championship match with Munster on Friday evening. “It’s certainly not what I signed up for.
“The whole landscape from when I started to where it is now is somewhat different. I can only commend the players and staff for where we’ve got to despite the difficulties. Let’s be clear about it, a lot of it is uncontrollable from a performance point of view. Of course it’s going to always be there and have an effect. But the players – and the results back this up – have made a massive effort to be resilient. On a weekly basis it’s pretty tough. We’re at a critical point where we want to kick on and hopefully we can still do that, but it’s becoming more and more difficult.”
The Englishman has two years left on his own contract and a number of staff fall into the same bracket with their deals. But the inability of those who do the power-broking in Welsh rugby to sign off an overarching financial settlement, with one regional figure only this week calling the terms unacceptable, allied to the treatment of players, has created an environment that’s even more unsettled than usual.
“If you don’t know what your budget status is or your contract status is, it’s very difficult to move forward as an organisation,” said Booth. You can read more about the former electrician-turned-head coach here.
“At the moment there is a lot of uncertainty kicking around. Agreements aren’t in place, contracts haven’t been agreed. There is still so much work that needs to be done. We’re at the business end of the season and there is work that needs to be done. Whatever happens impacts everyone in the organisation. We had a contract model that was X and now it’s Y and we’ve got changes within that. The devil is in the detail but you end up in a stalemate where there is no traction forward and that’s very difficult.”
Would you support Welsh rugby players taking strike action amid contracts turmoil? Have your say here
At the sharp end are players who are now set to see their pay packets shrink. Some may lose their jobs. Some will leave Wales. They all have Booth’s sympathy, and not just them.
“There are staff involved in this as well,” said the head coach. “Uncertainty provides so many distractions and so much anxiety that you wouldn’t be human if it didn’t affect you. That’s a very tough challenge for sure and it’s very tough as a leader to sit at the top of that.”
Booth is unlikely to sport a Che Guevara T-shirt any time soon or man the barricades with the Socialist Workers Party, but he isn’t going to condemn any call to come out on strike.
“I support, as you can imagine, the position of the Ospreys because I’m in charge,” he said. “The players are absolutely my focus in terms of getting a performance. I’ll support them the best I can. If they feel they have to make a stand, then they’ll make a stand and I understand that completely.”
But something has to give, with seemingly no-one happy with the current mess. “It’s got to breaking point,” said Booth. “At some point, the definition of insanity has to surely mean we’ve got to the point where we realise that what’s gone on before hasn’t worked well enough, and it’s time to change,” said Booth.
Quite how that change will work out — that is the question.
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