Rugby must rise to the huge challenges laid down by our fantastic Euro 2016 football heroes

WELSH rugby is facing a major challenge. Not so much from rampant England, Ireland or the southern superpowers.

No, not from them, but from the Wales football team.

Now, before I go any further, this isn’t an attempt to resurrect the old rugby v football debate or to be in any way divisive at this time of sporting celebration.

For me, the dream scenario is for both codes to prosper in this country and for both to garner public support and draw in the crowds.

But right now, it’s foot- ball that’s in the ascendancy and there is much for those running Welsh rugby to ponder.

The impact the Euro 2016 success has had has been truly seismic, both at home and abroad.

It’s totally gripped the Welsh public, with thousands heading across the Channel, while pubs and fan zones have been packed up and down the land. But it’s also captured the imagination of football followers further afield.

I can’t help but recall the words of Laura McAllister, the then chair of Sport Wales, from just over a year ago.

She created something of a storm when she claimed it would be more important to the reputation, profile and image of our nation if Wales qualified for the Euros than if we won the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Now I was one of those to take issue with her comments because I felt the comparison she used was too extreme.

But, with the benefit of hindsight and how events have transpired, you can see there was something in her general argument.

Her point was that footballing success would have “a deeper and more significant resonance for our international reputation and profile” because of the reach of the sport compared to rugby “which is small-fry globally”.

And, on that score, she has probably been proved right.

Wales making it through to the semi-finals of the Euros has inevitably had a wider impact than when Warren Gatland’s team reached the last four of the 2011 World Cup, simply because of the number of countries where the two sports are played - more than 200 compared with maybe 100, with perhaps just 25 nations playing rugby to any serious level.

The spin-offs are there for all to see. Newspapers right across Europe have plastered Gareth Bale and Co over their front and back pages in a way that just doesn’t happen when our rugby team triumphs.

And that has an inevitable impact on the awareness of Wales as a nation abroad.

We’ve all seen the hugely positive impression Welsh fans have made out in France.

And the sense of national pride which the success has fostered back home has just been great to see and experience. Just about everyone is talking about the football and it’s putting a spring in our collective step.

In contrast, the conversation about rugby is, well, a little muted to say the least. In truth, no-one really seems that bothered about it at the moment.

This being the digital age, I can see at any given moment which articles

on our website are the most-read and ever since that information became available a few years ago, it’s rugby which has dominated.

But not now. Over the past few weeks, football has taken over and the rugby is practically nowhere to be seen on the chart. I mean to say, even I have switched to writing about the round ball!

Now, to an extent, this is perfectly understandable. After all, the rugby season is over and it didn’t end in particularly inspiring fashion, with Wales losing all four games on their tour of New Zealand.

The contrast with the way Coleman’s team has ignited the nation could not be more marked.

The question is what will the longer term implications be?

While the current success is unprecedented, we have seen in the past that support for the Wales football team has been pretty cyclical.

It remains to be seen what will happen moving forward if they hit a rough patch, although you do sense this wave of support will stay with them for a fair while such is the passion and affection they have engendered.

But what’s perhaps even more important than future support for the team is the impact the success will have in terms of inspiring the next generation when it comes to deciding which sport to take up.

Youngsters need sporting role models and in the likes of Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Ashley Williams they have them in abundance. You are already seeing more and more young kids wearing the red shirts with those names on their backs.

They will want to be like their heroes and to play their sport, which will surely have a knockon effect when it comes to participation numbers.

Football already leaves rugby standing on that front.

To quote McAllister’s own figures, around 325,000 people in Wales play football per month, with just a third of that number playing rugby.

What’s been happening out in France could yet see that gulf widen, particularly when it comes to the all-important youngsters.

Football is also way out in front when it comes to weekly attendances.

So this is the challenge facing Welsh rugby.

Both in terms of participation numbers and spectators, it’s a constant battle to get more people on board and that’s inevitably going to be tougher when the sport is off the radar of public consciousness amid the football frenzy.

The WRU recently appointed Mark Killingley as their head of digital, a new role which is something of a shift in direction from the old-style head of communications or press officer.

It’s his job to head up the selling of the sport in Wales, focusing firmly on doing so via digital means, which he did with notable success at the RFU.

Having met up with him, I’ve been encouraged by his ideas and enthusiasm and by his desire to work with all the interested parties to promote Welsh rugby and see it prosper.

But there are certainly challenges ahead, with four autumn internationals - against Australia, Argentina, Japan and South Africa - to try and sell tickets for, after a less than inspiring year for Wales to date.

And in the longer term, there’s the whole crucial participation issue, both with regards to kids taking up the sport and some grass-roots clubs struggling to fulfil fixtures.

The regions also have a big job on their hands to create interest after the disappointments of last season when we were left with no team in the Pro12 play-offs and only one qualifier for the Champions Cup.

At the moment, it’s all a bit quiet, with the egg in eggsile as football takes centre stage. So, over to you Welsh rugby. Give us something to talk about.