Let’s concentrate on building rugby quality

WARREN Gatland’s interesting selection for the Scotland game is clearly governed to some extent by the non-availability of some key players due to injury.

Indeed, concerns have been widely expressed in all the competing countries about the number of players who are unavailable.

Is it possible that playing the season in “blocks” as in the Southern Hemisphere might alleviate the pressure on players like Alun Wyn and Dan Biggar, who have to jump straight from an autumn international against a Tier 1 nation to a crucial game in the European Cup. I stand to be corrected on this but Southern Hemisphere players don’t seem to suffer as many injuries in their more logically ordered seasons.

Like many involved in local rugby I would love to see an end to the autumn internationals. However, I understand that they generate an enormous amount of money for the WRU, which I also accept is infinitely better led at present than under the previous regime. However, European games often have the intensity of internationals and it makes little sense to jump from Europe to Autumn International then back to Europe. Something has obviously got to give and at present it seems to the physical well-being of some of our leading players.

Behind all of this looms the shadow of that increasingly meaningless cash cow, the Lions tour. Even those media pundits who drool endless drivel about these tours are realising that physically, for many leading players, it’s a bridge too far. It’s a great gig for the supporter who can afford it and it generates an enormous amount of money for the host nation, for travel companies and of course Sky TV, whose corporate property it seems to have become. But these tours are no longer about great rugby traditions. They’re about making money. The pressure they put on players in an increasingly physically demanding sport is now just too much.

Our former captain, Sam Warburton, is laid up for the season. Yet it seems that despite it being known that Sam needed a shoulder operation he was persuaded to tour with the Lions and postpone surgery until his return. Not a great outcome for the Blues and the national team. Was he persuaded by his national coach, who over the last four years seems to have spent as much time with the Lions as he has with Wales? Let’s cut out the unnecessary and concentrate instead on creating a national team that can compete consistently in the competitions that mean something, i.e. the 6 Nations and the World Cup. I Seaton Mumbles, Swansea