Over-coaching has held our rugby players back
AFTER watching another disappointing result against the All Blacks, I have finally resigned myself to not witnessing a Welsh victory against New Zealand in my lifetime. I am a couple of months off 75 years of age, so am not holding my breath for a win.
I was at Cardiff Arms Park in 1978 when we almost beat them but sadly the opposition dipped into their dirty tricks locker and a player feigned being pushed out of the lineout. The All Blacks were awarded a penalty, which was kicked, and won the game 13-12.
We haven’t beaten the All Blacks since 1953 and I am fed up of Welsh coaches, over the decades, saying after each loss that this has been invaluable experience for these players, if you want to be the best, then you have to play the best. With that logic, why, after all these defeats, all these many, many Welsh players haven’t got so much better with all the experience they supposedly get from each loss?
By now we should be up there with the best.
Personally, I think players are over-coached and when a naturally gifted player comes along their talent is coached out of them.
Instead of all the gym work these professional players do, it’s obvious they need more ball skill training and revert back to flair rugby.
I was always told by my PT teacher when learning to play rugby, make the ball do the work and tackle around their legs. For me that’s as relevant today as it was then.
We seem to have made a simple game extremely complicated. I can only hope that things change very soon.
Rant over.
Phil Pearce
Pontypool
Money-chasing WRU has exploited the fans
A black mark for the WRU... seemingly a little too keen to get its snout in the trough.
If the WRU wanted to arrange a match outside the international set window, why not Georgia, for example? A warmup game against the All Blacks, with a depleted squad, was without thought for the players and the genuine supporters, the latter being clearly exploited on this occasion. Anthony L Jones Crickhowell
Rugby chiefs have invited tiger to tea
THIS is written to second the admirable observations of your contributor Mr Ian Seaton (Echo letters, October 29), published under the heading “Our rugby masters have sold us out”.
They have indeed. I write this on the morning of October 30, the day Wales are going to play New Zealand at the Principality Stadium. Who will win? Frankly, I don’t care. Time was when such a morning would have been one of eager anticipation and nervous excitement for me, certainly, but also for many others, club members and close followers of the game of course, but also thousands of casual followers, old and young, Auntie Maud and Mr Jones next door, who could just switch on their TV and watch. That was when, as Mr Seaton puts it, “The game belonged to
The small print: Letters will not be included unless you include your name, full postal address and daytime telephone number (we prefer to use names of letter writers but you can ask for your name not to be published if you have a good reason). The Editor reserves the right to edit all letters. the nation and its people.” Now no more. Apart from arranging the game outside the autumn “window”, and thus guaranteeing a weakened Welsh team, the WRU has put it behind a paywall.
They have, again in Mr Seaton’s words, excluded “many older, lifelong supporters of Wales who have neither the technical ability nor the financial resources” to sign up to the deal.
And then there are those of us who have (if in my case only just!) the technical ability, and the financial resources, but who do not wish to feed the fat cuckoo that has laid its eggs in our nest – that is, Amazon.
Already this vast enterprise has devastated the book trade.
It’s been largely responsible for turning our high streets into deserts.
And now its greedy eyes are on our media.
Some naïve observers have actually praised Amazon for offering a Welsh-language commentary, as if this were a generous gesture.
No, on the contrary; this merely confirms their monopolising ambitions – “let’s clobber S4C as well as the English channels. Let’s seal all escape routes”.
The WRU should have nothing to do with this corporation.
Its decision-makers are probably congratulating themselves on making a lucrative deal. Instead what they have done is invite a tiger to tea.
Robert Williams Aberystwyth
Why, after all these defeats, all these many, many Welsh players haven’t got so much better with all the experience they supposedly get from each loss?
Phil Pearce Pontypool
Is transporting tanks a good idea?
I realise military personnel require intensive training on the equipment they use, including utilising the Castle Martin artillery training camp in Pembrokeshire. Very often we see convoys of tank transporters travelling along the M4 westbound then after a while we see the same vehicles travelling back east carrying the same tanks.
I would imagine these vehicles
are gulping diesel at a rate of about four miles per gallon. Would it not be prudent to leave the tanks there for the next training session?
Mike Edwards
Efail Isaf
When their best is not good enough
IS there anything more annoying than the banal phrase “doing his best”.
As in Johnson is “doing his best”. Ann Widdecombe was doing her best on Strictly Come Dancing.
They are all classic examples of totally unsuitable people in totally unsuitable jobs.
Their best will always fall stunningly short of being even remotely acceptable.
Tony Pegge Ystradgynlais