We’ve been here before — about a thousand times before actually, wondering where it’s all going wrong for Welsh rugby after the latest set of poor results.
The cue for concern this time came last weekend when all four regions lost in Europe.
On social media, many were lamenting the round of defeats for Cardiff, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets. Former Wales coaching candidate Mark Evans asked whether Welsh rugby’s development system needed an upgrade. Ex-Wales hooker Steve ‘Jabba’ Jones took aim at the negativity over regional rugby and contended the game here had four professional teams “full of young Welsh talent”, while Lee Jarvis declared he’d rather watch a team that could win regardless of where players came from and reckoned the 60-cap rule on exiled players benefited only one party, namely Team Wales.
Mike Phillips sent out a simple but telling post: “Regional rugby in Wales!” It was accompanied by a thinking-face emoji and one of a man facepalming.
Many others had their own answers or complaints.
We asked former Wales coach and captain Nigel Davies and another ex-Wales skipper, Paul Thorburn, for their views on the rugby scene in Wales right now. This is what they told us.
Nigel Davies
Davies led Wales as a player and also coached them. He coached the Scarlets and Gloucester Rugby. Last year, he ran for election on the Welsh Rugby Union’s national council. Nowadays, he’s a self-employed management consultant, working in the aerospace and automotive sector.
"The European results for the Welsh regions last weekend understandably caused a lot of anguish for many people," he said. "The silver lining there is that at least people still care about the game here. When they stop caring that will really be time to worry.
“I just hope that point doesn’t come quickly.
“I have worked in regional rugby and I know it isn’t an easy environment in which to achieve success, so this isn’t about taking pot shots at individuals or teams.
“Anyway, my thinking is that Welsh rugby’s difficulties are not just confined to the professional tier of the game.
“Before I go on, I’d like to clarify I’m not saying any of this out of self-interest. I ran for a place on the Welsh Rugby Union’s national council in 2020. I tried hard to get on the board but didn’t succeed. That’s the way it goes.
“The reason I’m speaking out now is because I’m genuinely concerned about the game here, because I know what rugby gave me and the values it instilled in me. We’d be a lot worse in Wales for not having a thriving game. I have no ambition now to join the WRU board. I’ve moved on.
“But it seems to me that all levels of the game are affected. When you look at what’s happening in England and France, the game is flourishing in terms of playing numbers, facilities, how it’s all connected, how it’s driven and how it’s viewed by the public.
“The regional game is important because it’s the shop window. Youngsters see players from Cardiff, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets on TV regularly (or in the flesh if they go to matches) and so it’s key for the teams to do well because they can inspire.
“But you can’t ignore what’s happening at the bottom.
“Unless you get the roots of the game right, you are going to struggle to be successful at the top end.
“That’s been one of my concerns all along, namely that people are not understanding the big picture and how it connects to what goes on at the upper end and vice-versa. I don’t think you can look at things in isolation.
Playing numbers
“A number of people in the community game have told me that there’s a big issue over player numbers.
“There are once-thriving clubs who no longer run second teams.
“Do we have too many clubs and is the answer to wind some of them up or merge them? That’s a question I have frequently heard asked, but, for me, that’s too simplistic a road to go down.
“It doesn’t solve anything or stop the rot. I think we need to look at what’s happening elsewhere before we consider streamlining clubs. If you look at Japan, for instance, they have huge player numbers that are increasing year on year because they are selling the game on what we’ve always known it to be, namely a great sport for young men and women to get involved in, with brilliant values. That’s why so many Japanese parents are encouraging their children to play rugby.
“We have to promote the game better here, talk it up and emphasise what it brings. We have to look at infrastructure. There are teams struggling to find a place to train at this time of year, and without facilities it’s difficult to develop players and get them engaged.
“Just cutting clubs is a race to the bottom.
“But there does need to be change. French football altered things at grassroots. They looked at their training structures, how they engaged with youngsters in the first place and how they encouraged them to come along to play. They made sure they had the right facilities.
“I do have a concern about the elite pathways that are in place.
“Years ago, we had a lot more layers in our game. When I played youth rugby, we had district rugby even at senior level and counties rugby. You could represent sides other than playing for Wales or for one of the very top clubs. It kept people in the game and it kept people interested, not just from a players’ point of view but from a supporters’ point of view as well. We’ve lost those layers now, and it’s had a knock-on effect.
The pro game in Wales
“Let’s return to the pro game," Davies continues.
“Should there be two separate entities running the game? We kind of have that facility already with the community game board and the professional game board — or at least that’s the idea.
“My question would be whether we have the right mix of people to make the boards as effective as they need to be. And the same applies to the main board of the union.
“Ever since we’ve had regional rugby there’s been a lot of interest by all the regions — understandably so, to a point. Everybody comes to the table with an agenda, but that’s when you need experts. That’s why they had a strong chair in Amanda Blanc. But she ended up moving on.
“So what to do about the regions? I would ask what we can afford as a union and ask what a successful regional organisation looks like in terms of its development pathways, its links with the community game, its budget, the balance of its squad — the mix of homegrown players, international players, overseas players and the type you bring in. When you start to look at those things, you start to put together a proper cost model. When you have that, you know how much you can afford.
“Wales is different in that the regions are set up to support Wales, and they’ve done that very well. People may bemoan the fact that so many youngsters are sometimes being picked in regional teams, but because of those opportunities we’ve brought through a lot of young players over the past 10 years. They have been exposed to the professional game and, ultimately, Wales has profited.
“That’s a positive from the perspective of the national team. The problem is that when those youngsters become internationals, it’s barely worth a region having them on their books because they see so little of them. The union have taken on a lot of the cost in recent years, but it’s still a cost for the regions.
Crowd trouble?
“The size of crowds attending some professional matches in Wales is also a worry.
“Looking over the Bridge, Gloucester can have 13,000 people watching a game, with many of them paying £30 each. In regional rugby you can get a season ticket for £150, if not for less. For some games in Wales, it can be a stretch to say there are 4,000 or 5,000 people inside grounds, and not all of those are paying on the day.
“I know we’re a small country and population centres need to be taken into account when discussing crowd sizes, but when you have 13,000 people regularly coming to matches and you have the food and beverage on top of that, that makes a significant difference to your bottom line. It has a big effect on what you are able to afford, how you are able to develop the game, the squad you are able to put together. It does impact your business. When you have a crowd of 4,000, with half of those season ticket holders, well, it’s not great.
“Is it the fault of the league our pro teams play in? It is difficult, because the United Rugby Championship is so disjointed with five countries and next to no away support. I love rugby and was brought up with it. I hugely enjoy the local derbies because you have the intensity, you have travelling support, subject to Covid restrictions. But too many of the other games lack atmosphere and there’s a lack of intensity around matches.
“I also think in England there are really strong brand names that local people can identify with. Those names encourage them to go and support their local team.
The need for a review
“I’d agree with the idea of a review into Welsh rugby but it shouldn’t just be about the professional game.
“A review would need to assess what’s going on from top to bottom, looking at the linkage and also being radical in how we assess things right across the piece.
“There are positive examples about how we can increase participation. I was at a club in England a few weeks ago and their junior section was flying. While it was great to see, it was also quite disheartening because I know what it’s like generally in Wales.
“You need people who have understanding to look into all these issues, who think about the game and are not close-minded.
“But my guess is we won’t go there.
“We’ll just carry on spinning the same old plates, even as they crash to the ground.
“I’d go as far as to say we are dying a slow death.
“I might be wrong — I hope so.
“I really do.”
Paul Thorburn
Thorburn skippered Wales and won 37 caps between 1985 and 1991, playing in the side which finished third at the 1987 World Cup and the team which won a Five Nations Triple Crown a year later. He was tournament director at the 1999 World Cup and special projects manager for the WRU, also spending time with the Ospreys. He currently works as a business consultant.
“Where do you start with professional rugby in Wales?" he asks.
“Well, let’s open on a positive note and say it can be made to work.
“I was there at the Ospreys when we were getting good crowds and had one of the best commercial set-ups in the game. We sold more than 40,000 jerseys a season over a number of years and had the top-selling shirt aside from Munster in the British Isles. We also had sponsorship income on the shirts of around £600,000, which wasn’t bad and we were getting decent crowds. Unfortunately, on the pitch we just couldn’t get over the line, so to speak, in Europe.
“I maintain we are still producing quality players as a nation. I watched Cardiff play a couple of European games before Christmas and because they were without so many players, they had to use a few youngsters and boys from the semi-professional game. They played really well, considering they weren’t used to that level of rugby. I thought the full-backs ( Jacob Beetham and Cameron Winnett) were very talented and so was the small winger ( Theo Cabango ).
“Generally, though, I think the competition the teams play in isn’t ideal.
“There have always been problems.
“The whole process of regional rugby wasn’t done sensibly in the first place, with standalone entities mixed in with sides who had come together. It was neither one thing or another and it meant that we weren’t really starting with a blank sheet of paper for the benefit of Welsh rugby as a whole. If you started with a blank sheet of paper you wouldn’t have had standalone clubs in a regional system.
“Then there’s the bread-and-butter competition the regions play in. Back in the early days of the Celtic League and what followed, you had a situation where Brian O’Driscoll rarely came out of Ireland for a Celtic League game, but he did come to the UK and France for Heineken Cup games. The same was true of other leading Irish players at the time. Supporters sensed it and started losing interest. They are not stupid. They know when teams are sending out weakened teams. And then Wales players started playing fewer games for the regions, and so it went on.
“I don’t think the Celtic League or any of its incarnations has turned out to be the answer for Welsh rugby.
“They tried to bolster it by bringing in Italian teams and then South Africans.
“But that’s akin to putting a sticking plaster on a major arterial bleed.
“It’s a complete joke and people don’t buy into it.
“I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think playing South African sides and Italian teams helps, even though both may be beating the regions at various points.
“Our problems go far deeper than that, anyway. I’ve been doing a bit of kicking coaching at community clubs and it’s gobsmacking to hear that they can’t get fixtures against under-15 opposition.
“Scratch below the international success Wales has had, punching above our weight relatively, and most people will agree that the game is in a very precarious place, because if the grassroots game is struggling, it doesn’t augur well for the long-term future of the regions and the international game.
“Without a community game you don’t have a professional game unless you rely disproportionately on imports, which I’m not sure is the way forward.
“The reality is the game at both ends is on a cliff edge in Wales.
“We are in a different position from England in that we have different economies, and, let’s be fair, there have been problems over the border, as well. Up until a couple of years ago, the only club not to operate at a loss, I seem to recall, was Exeter Chiefs.
“But the entertainment value does seem greater and the atmosphere at games is invariably vibrant. Playing in front of lots of spectators makes a difference to players and to the bottom line. In Wales we’ve had crowds in recent years where it’s hardly been worth opening stadiums.
“I’m not saying it’s easy for anyone, and there certainly isn’t a silver bullet.
“There are massive issues, and parts of the community and grassroots game seem to be dying. Don’t get me wrong: there are some clubs who are thriving, but a lot aren’t. Many are struggling to raise teams and very few of them have second teams at senior level. The game has fundamental issues at grassroots. If that’s not sorted out, it’s storing up big problems.
“European rugby has become more and more about money, and those involved are increasingly not playing on a level playing field. Can anything be done? Potentially, but I’m not sure the will across the board would be there. The horse has bolted and is never going to return.
“I have an issue with the academy structure. I think it has almost alienated some clubs in the community against the regions. Robots are being created and discarded if they don’t fit the bill.
“Could the regions not bring on board community clubs and make them more aware of the standards that are needed and encourage young players to achieve those standards to make it? That would encourage clubs to have more of an affinity with the regions.
“We tried to develop relationships with community clubs when I was at the Ospreys, negotiating deals to help them buy kits at competitive rates, so kids felt part of the Ospreys region. We also did ticket deals linked to coach travel where we’d provide a certain number of complimentary tickets to encourage kids and their families to come and watch the Ospreys. It’s all about getting buy-in from the community, tighter bonds.
“I started positively but it’s hard to stay positive.
“But we have to address these issues. They are not going away.”
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