Welsh vote on cup hosts disappoints Irish rugby

IRISH rugby chiefs have publicly voiced their disappointment over Wales’ decision not to vote for them as hosts of the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

France dramatically won the right to host the competition after the World Rugby Council decided to vote against the technical evaluation of the three competing nations, which recommended South Africa.

Ireland had still hoped to get the nod when it came to yesterday’s crunch vote, but they were left trailing in third place after collecting just eight of the 39 available votes.

England are reported to have supported the Irish, but it seems Wales went for South Africa, while Scotland opted for France.

The WRU have not officially confirmed which way they voted, but it seems they felt duty-bound to go with the recommended host nation because chairman Gareth Davies was part of the initial evaluation process. France won 18 votes on the first count, with South Africa getting 13. In the second round of voting, with Ireland knocked out, the French won 24 votes to South Africa’s 15.

“The bottom line is that we were disappointed that Scotland and Wales didn’t vote for us,” Irish Rugby Union chief Philip Browne said.

“They had reasons. In terms of Wales, the situation was that they wanted to see what the evaluation report was like, what the outcome of that was, and they felt duty bound to support Gareth Davies.”

Irish bid chief Dick Spring added: “We feel very disappointed, not getting support from some of our nearest neighbours.”

CARDIFF Blues have issued a comprehensive response to the flak they have received in the wake of their 57-0 Anglo-Welsh Cup drubbing at the hands of Newcastle.

The Arms Park outfit leaked nine tries at Kingston Park as they capitulated in their opening fixture in the cross-border event.

Writing on WalesOnline, Andy Howell described it as one of the worst performances in the history of the region.

It was a grim picture across the board for our teams, as the Scarlets, Dragons and Ospreys all went down to heavy defeats against English opposition, with the aggregate scoreline being 174-19.

But it was the hammering for the Blues that really stood out, so what have they had to say for themselves?

Richard Hodges is the man at the coaching helm for this tournament and he has fronted up to provide the response.

He acknowledges that the Blues’ performance in the north east was disappointing from a technical and a tactical point of view.

But he says they just couldn’t cope against a strong Newcastle side once they picked up a couple of injuries.

And he maintains the biggest factor in this competition is the mismatch in terms of squad depth between the Welsh and English teams.

“The results across the board were disappointing, but ours more than anybody else’s,” admitted Hodges.

“If you want my brutal honest opinion, Newcastle have got 59 players in their first-team photo.

“That’s probably 20 per cent more than we have here.

“So, when it comes to competitions like this, they can have 20 boys off and they’ve still got another 39 to select from.

“We have got all our academy boys in here training these two weeks. We’ve got boys coming out of school, with headteachers giving them time off to come in and train.

“That’s probably not the case over in England.

“We don’t have the numbers in the squad depth.

“I don’t want that to paper over some of the cracks, which were disappointing from a technical and a tactical angle.

“But, yes, there is a mismatch in terms of squad depth.”

While the Blues did have the likes of Tom James, George Earle, Anton Peikrishvili and James Down on duty, they also featured a large number of inexperienced youngsters.

In contrast, the Falcons were pretty fully loaded, with internationals Maxime Mermoz, Josh Matavesi, Scott Lawson, Juan Pablo Socino and twotry wing Sinoti Sinoti in their ranks and they ran riot.

“Newcastle said afterwards that we had been up against the team which will be playing Wasps in the Aviva Premiership this weekend,” said Hodges.

“That’s always going to be a bit of a battle.

“We go into week two of the AngloWelsh Cup, where a lot of the English sides have had a week off before (in terms of senior players) and then load back up.

“Saying that, when the game kicked off at 5pm on Saturday, we wanted to win it and all the preparation in the week had gone into that.

“After 20 minutes, when it was 0-0 we were sat there very happy with how it had gone. The issue we have is you pick up a couple of injuries and then bring boys off the bench who aren’t in this building.

“They are coming in from the Welsh Premiership going against seasoned internationals, who are playing regularly in the Aviva, and we just couldn’t cope.

“That is why the scoreline got out of control.

“There was a bit of tough learning from some individuals where some simple errors that aren’t acceptable at this level have hurt us.”

Unlike Newcastle, the Blues chose to rest most of their available firstteam starters, both with an eye on games to come and youth development.

“If you look at what we have come from – Toulouse, Lyon, Dragons, Zebre – you’ve got boys who have played a lot of big games, with travel involved, on four consecutive weekends,” said Hodges.

“They have to have a rest somewhere.

“So you have to periodise your season for the players because they can’t be rolling out and performing week after week after week. They have to get that break and that period when they can rest up and recover.

“It’s a constant balancing act. We are juggling many balls.

“We have to look at our priorities going back into PRO14, alongside giving rugby to boys who may not have had a lot of minutes and exposing youngsters.”

He continued: “There are two sides to the story. Yes, we want to win games of rugby, but we are realistic enough to know that the way Welsh rugby is nowadays you have to develop your own from within.

“When we have had youngsters step into the PRO14 this season they have come out of it with a lot of credit.

“The likes of Jarrod Evans, Seb Davies, Kieron Assiratti, Rhun Williams, Dillon Lewis are now playing a lot of regional rugby.

“But this time last year they were playing in the Anglo-Welsh competition.

“They were playing down in Exeter getting 50-60 points put on them. But it was that integration and introduction to high-level rugby.

“As long as people can understand the bigger picture that’s at play here in terms of trying to expose some boys and seeing who can stand up and hack that level, then we can still get some positives and some things to hang our hat on.”