Sixteen reasons why Welsh rugby is troubled
In my days in the corporate world, I sat through too many strategic planning sessions, ones where the key issues facing the business were identified and debated. It was always good to get the number down to three ‘biggies’, and if things were really bad we might go to five, but if we’d ever had 16, I think we’d have known we were deep in the mire.
However, when the Welsh Rugby Union’s chief executive, Martyn Phillips, faced the Press last week, that’s the number he discussed, and surely that’s a sign of an organisation living in troubled times?
When you take a good look at his issues, the best that can be said is that his frankness has to be applauded, but overall it’s a dreadful indictment of the way the WRU have been run over the years. Of course, the Regions are at the heart of Welsh rugby, and their relations with the governing body since they were founded have ranged from poor through to totally dysfunctional, but according to Phillips they’re now ‘very good’, which I suppose means they’re at least talking to each other.
In fact, he says, they’re so good that they trust each other, and are about to have the ‘grittier’ conversations. He then used the remarkable phrase, ‘with trust comes compassionate ruthlessness’ – it will be fascinating to see how that pans out!
He talked about the problems they face garnering support from the Valleys, something they haven’t managed to do successfully in the 13 years since the Regions were put in place. From an outsider’s point of view you have to wonder at how the Welsh and Scottish Unions managed to mess up dyed-in-the-wool rugby areas – the Valleys for the Welsh, and the Borders for the Scots?
The bit that intrigued me most was when Phillips spoke about the Newport Gwent Dragons – people now add ‘troubled’ before their name so often that the abbreviation probably ought to be ‘tNGD’. Phillips pointed out that there are 73 rugby clubs in Gwent, but the tNGD still can’t get any sort of a crowd, and play on a pitch that’s a disgrace. He didn’t rule out the WRU taking them over – in fact he said the WRU would do whatever they had to do…but then added that they’d have to consider whether they could afford it!
It was a brave attempt by Phillips to be open, and set out the problems the WRU face, but all it actually did was highlight just what a broken model Welsh rugby has at present.
I’m no great fan of Rugby League, but the news that the once-great Bradford Bulls have had to cease trading is hugely disappointing, and not only for the 13-man game. The message is a simple one: no club in any sport, no matter how iconic are bulletproof.
It’s just over ten years since they won the RL World Club Challenge for the third time, and their decline since then has been a steady one.
Last week I expressed the view that Premier Rugby should start to get their house in order by setting a pathway towards break-even that every club had to follow, and last week’s events in League just serve to make that even more important.
The spendthrift clubs which wanted the salary cap to keep increasing, or even to be removed, quoted their inability to compete in Europe as the driver for their actions. I suspect that’s more an emotional argument than a factual one, but even if it was correct, I’d rather opt for a few years of comparative failure in the Champions Cup, than see one or more of our great English clubs flounder.
It’s all very well for PRL to close their eyes to such a possibility, but we all know the clubs where a change of heart on the part of an individual would mean that everything was up for grabs. If a club owner suddenly passed away, would their heirs share the same enthusiasm for funding their hobby, and if they didn’t, would anyone want to pick up the debt?
English rugby’s on a roll, with attendances and TV audiences at record highs, but are the Premiership’s foundations built on sand?
This week looks to be the time when the announcement of player moves within the Premiership will start to take shape. It’s amazing that with discussions off limits until the first of January, agreements are able to be put in place so quickly – if I was a cynic I’d be wondering whether perhaps the rules on contact with players were being flaunted? Surely not?