WHEN THINGS TURNED SOUR... WELSH RUGBY’S GRUDGE MATCHES
“I can see we’re going to get along like a house on fire. There may be no survivors.”
That line from Terry Pratchett’s ‘The Wee Free Men’ perfectly illustrates this simple principle.
Not everyone gets along.
They say you can teach people everything, other than to get along. Welsh rugby is no different.
Not everybody has seen eye to eye at times and there’s been some bad blood on occasion over the years.
LEE BYRNE AND ROB HOWLEY
When former Wales full-back Lee Byrne published his autobiography, ‘ The Byrne Identity’ in 2017, the fallout was quite something.
The most stunning revelation were accusations that then Wales assistant coach Rob Howley had humiliated the former Ospreys and Clermont full-back as he was phased out of the national team’s plans.
“I felt he was trying to undermine me, in a subtle yet insidious way,” Byrne wrote in his book.
“We’d started working together in 2008 when Warren Gatland brought him into the Wales set-up. He’d overseen my best moments in a Wales shirt, and I rated him as an attack coach,” said Byrne, who helped Wales win the 2008 Grand Slam and scored 10 tries for his country.
“But, in around 2011, cracks started to appear in our relationship. I’d been affected by a knee injury and had worked my backside off to make the squad for the World Cup.
“But when I returned to the training field, I noticed that Howley had a different attitude towards me.
“’Great kick, Halfers [Halfpenny]. Well done, Halfers!’ Howley would yell during training.
“Fair enough, except when I nailed the same kick there’d be stony silence. ‘Awesome angle, Halfers!’ he’d cry, only to ignore anything decent I did, whilst loudly criticising my mistakes.
“It seemed to me that Howley’s constant sniping was part of a grinding-down process - step by step and day by day - to get me out of the team.
“I felt like he was trying to break me down mentally, to make me give in so they could justify dropping me.”
Howley offered very little in response to the accusations, other than to deny them.
“With regards to Lee Byrne, I deny the allegations. I’m very surprised at his comments,” he admitted weeks later.
Given the nature of the accusations, the WRU came out and said they’d contact Byrne to build a picture of his concerns. In 2019, Byrne revealed he had spoke to WRU chairman Gareth Davies but nothing came of it.
“I don’t think I had any negative feedback (about my book) to be honest... apart from Rob Howley,” he added in an interview not long after the birth of his first daughter Jemima.
When Howley was handed a nine month ban for betting breaches, Byrne took to social media to question why people felt sorry for the former Wales attack guru.
“He knew what he was doing,” he added in a follow-up post.
Fair to say these two probably aren’t on each others’ Christmas card list.
LYNN HOWELLS AND DAVID MOFFETT
Another pair who didn’t exactly see eye to eye were Lynn Howells and David Moffett.
In his book, ‘ Despite the Knockbacks ‘, Howells made his feeling perfectly clear on Moffett.
“Moffett for me was one of the most ignorant men I’ve met because you couldn’t have any discussions with him.
It was his way or nothing. The man wouldn’t take criticism or just wouldn’t talk.
The first time I met him was at a Six Nations match. He just didn’t want to talk to the likes of me. He just about ignored me and only wanted to speak to Graham (Henry).”
It’s hardly surprising given the fact that the two were diametrically opposed in what they wanted for Welsh rugby.
Howells was coach of the Celtic Warriors prior to their demise.
When the Warriors did go extinct, Howells didn’t mince his words about the then WRU chief - comparing Moffett’s role in axing the valleys region to former National Coal Board chief Ian MacGregor’s campaign of pit closures in the 1980s.
“I think what Moffett has done to rugby in the valleys is similar to what MacGregor did,” said Howells in 2004.
“The Valleys seem to be an easy target and it has left a sour taste.”
Moffett hit back at the departing Howells, who turned his back on Welsh rugby after that disappointment to take up a coaching job in Italy.
“Without wishing to engage in a public debate with Lynn Howells, I find his pronouncement probably the strangest I’ve heard since arriving in Wales,” said Moffett.
“He was fully aware Cardiff Blues, in conjunction with the WRU, were ensuring he was going to be employed to look after Valleys rugby and secure the future of Welsh rugby as a whole.
“I’m surprised he is leaving because he had been brought into the WRU vision for the development of regional rugby.”
Elsewhere in his book, Howells referred to Moffett as “naive about Wales and Welsh rugby”, as well as describing in great detail the time future Wales captain Ryan Jones tore him to shreds in a meeting as a young 23.
You don’t need to read between the lines to work out Howells’ feelings for Moffett.
HEMI TAYLOR AND STUART DAVIES
Back in the 1990s, the rivalry between Cardiff and Swansea was red-hot - even to the detriment of Wales at times.
After Alan Davies was relieved of his duties as Wales coach just eight weeks before the 1995 World Cup, Cardiff head coach Alex Evans was parachuted into the job, loading his squad with Blue and Black players as a resullt.
Defeats to New Zealand and Ireland meant their World Cup experience lasted just a week. The fallout lasted a little longer.
As Mike Hall, the man who took over the captaincy from Ieuan Evans under Evans, recalled in the book ‘ Behind the Dragon ‘: “There was no way the Llanelli, Neath or Swansea players were going to buy into the Alex Evans method. No chance. “There was a huge sense of animosity between the Cardiff and Swansea players at the time.
“Stuart Davies and Hemi Taylor couldn’t stand one another, but were then expected to play together in the same back-row.
“When Cardiff and Swansea played each other back then, we were selling out club grounds and smashing each other, then the next week, you were supposed to be playing with each other.”
As Hall states, Cardiff flanker Taylor and Swansea back-row Davies didn’t exactly get along.
Taylor himself admitted recently that the grudge between the two
clubs didn’t help the national team.
“There was bad blood at the time. Every match we had with Swansea something would happen and it spilled over into the Wales camp,” said Taylor.
“They didn’t like us and we didn’t like them. It was one of those things. Maybe the WRU should have given the job to (Swansea coach, Mike) Ruddock instead of Alec.”
And when Taylor made comments defending Evans’ after the World Cup in 1995, referring to ‘stirrers’ in camp, many of the Swansea players felt it was aimed at them.
In his book, ‘ Raising the
Dragon’ Robert Jones references Taylor’s comments and Swansea subsequently losing to Cardiff due to Davies getting too worked up about Taylor.
“The poison that I believe was spilled by Alec, and one or two other people such as Hemi Taylor, stayed in Welsh rugby for a while,” wrote Jones.
“It even cost Swansea a match against Cardiff the following season.
“Stuart Davies was hardly mates with Hemi at the best of times, and for once he forgot to play his own game and allowed himself to be caught up in his feelings.
“We followed his example.”
GARETH THOMAS AND EDDIE BUTLER
Who could forget the time these two went head-to-head on Scrum V back in 2006?
In the wake of Mike Ruddock’s shock resignation during that year’s Six Nations, a year on from a swashbuckling and historic Grand Slam, the Welsh public wanted answers.
So, with rumours aplenty that player-power had led to Ruddock’s exit, skipper Gareth Thomas appeared on BBC’s Scrum V programme to put the players point across.
What was to unfold was a TV car crash you simply couldn’t look away from as Butler and Thomas went at it about the resignation of Ruddock and accusations that player-power had forced out the coach.
From the off, Thomas was on the offensive - insisting the players were the only ones who hadn’t been heard in a saga that was being dragged into the mire of politics.
The stunning piece of television culminated in Thomas shouting down Butler’s claim that there were issues between Ruddock and Scott
Johnson, infamously saying “We all have rumours” when Butler said he’d been informed of this rift from a source.
To say it was fractious is an understatment.
In 2009, after Thomas became the first British rugby player to come out as gay, Butler wrote a piece in the Guardian saying that his sexuality was no big deal and he should focus on playing rugby again.
The piece also claimed that Wales coach Warren Gatland stopped his players talking to Alfie about rugby matters.
“The New Zealander ordered his squad to stop telling Thomas what was going on,” he wrote.
“This was because certain classified - only in the rugby sense - information was being leaked, and if Alfie was guilty of one thing it was of being a liability when it came to matters that did not really concern him.”
He finished with a line that suggested relations between the pair were, at that point, still a little frosty.
“(In response to Thomas coming out) We should say: ‘We know, Alfie, we know. Don’t worry.’
“But since it’s Gareth Thomas, I suspect that this will all have come out in a giant tumble and he’ll want us to be, I don’t know, agitated.
“So, Alfie, we’re all very worked up. Now get out there and enjoy the remainder of your playing days.”