It’s tough on Rhys Webb but strict rules are needed to save future of Test rugby
Rhys Webb wants to have his Welsh cake and eat it. The Ospreys and Lions scrum-half signed for Toulon earlier this month, days before the Welsh Rugby Union announced a change to its policy governing players outside the country, entrapping the 28-year-old.
The new rules outline that players moving to England or France from next season would only be considered by the Wales head coach if they had reached the 60-cap threshold. As Webb is on 28, he has no chance of reaching that by next September, even with all the extra internationals Wales are fond of arranging.
Webb’s response was to say that when he agreed to join Toulon – he cannot sign a contract with the French club until January, only a pre-agreement – he did not know the full implications regarding his international career. Warren Gatland, however, said he had warned him about the potential policy change.
Webb is a player the head coach will not want to be without from next season, one year away from the World Cup. He is Wales’s firstchoice scrum-half by some distance and is at the peak of a career which has been affected by injuries. With the sport taking an increasing toll on players, Toulon’s offer was one he felt he could not risk turning down.
By moving to France, he was jeopardising his international career anyway. Under the old policy, from the 2019-20 season which takes in the World Cup, Gatland would have been able to select only two wildcards in his squad, that is players based outside the country who had turned down the offer of a contract with one of Wales’s four regions.
The wildcards included George North, Liam Williams, Jamie Roberts, Taulupe Faletau and Rhys Priestland and they would have been joined next season by Webb and his regional and international half-back partner Dan Biggar, who is moving to Northampton.
It was because Gatland faced being without a number of senior players – all the above except Priestland are Lions – that the Welsh Rugby Union and the regions came up with another formula. The regions argued for 70 caps but, under Gatland’s prompting, settled on 60, the number adopted by Australia before the last World Cup.
New Zealand and Argentina do not consider any player for international rugby who is not based in the country, Ireland tend not to look beyond their own border and England will consider exiles only under exceptional circumstances: when Chris Ashton left Saracens for Toulon in the summer he knew that he was putting his Test career in limbo at best.
If it is hard on Webb, as it would be on another Lion, Ross Moriarty, if he signed a new contract with Gloucester, Wales have to keep making a stand in an attempt to galvanise the regional game which, the Scarlets aside, remains in a depressed state. The alternative is to disband the regions, move back to club rugby in the form of a semiprofessional Premiership and shoo their leading players to clubs in France and England.
It is not only a Welsh problem. The top leagues in France and England enjoy a substantial turnover, boosted by the largesse of owners, even if few of them make a profit. Their resources are such that they are able to attract leading players from the southern hemisphere in large numbers, and not just those looking for a pension at the end of their careers. Even New Zealand, where the lure of the national jersey is powerful, are losing players such as Aaron Cruden, Malakai Fekitoa and Charles Piutau, who have years left in them.
They may not have been firstchoice All Blacks but, as the Lions found when touring South Africa in 2009 and Australia in 2013, when countries lose players who are second or third in line it weakens the foundations of their professional game. The response of a number of English clubs to injury problems in the last month has been to sign players from Australia, South Africa and the Pacific islands.
It has consequences for the international game, as has been seen in the Rugby Championship. In every major rugby country in the world, the primacy of international rugby is not disputed, save two: England and France where the professional club game is vibrant and owners such as Toulon’s Mourad Boudjellal can afford to offer players contracts that set them up financially and soften the impact of a loss of Test status.
Wales could not compete with Toulon any more than they could with Northampton when the Saints approached Biggar, who, like Webb, is 28 and at the most marketable point in his career. The Welsh Rugby Union is braced to take a hit from the failure of the Six Nations to land an enhanced sponsorship deal for the tournament, one it can ill-afford to absorb, like Ireland and Scotland.
England are the world’s richest union but, along with France, it has the most mouths to feed. It has pursued a singular policy as it increases
its revenues and continues to refurbish Twickenham, refusing to consider arguments from the southern hemisphere that there should be revenue-sharing among tier one nations to ensure that countries there and in Europe are better able to hold on to players and so pay more than lip service to the primacy of international rugby.
The Rugby Football Union argues that the money it earns is poured back into the English game and that to give some up would hit the grassroots. But – and Bernard Laporte, the president of the French Rugby Federation has realised this – if Test rugby becomes weakened and less of an allure, there is a threat to income anyway. And what is the investment in age-group rugby worth if players are lost to the system because club places are blocked by recruits who are not qualified to play for England?
There are too many “foreign” players in France and the Premiership has, at the least, reached saturation point. Rugby does not have the broad appeal of football and cannot afford countries such as South Africa and Australia becoming unexceptional. Or Wales again, which is why there have to be consequences for Webb and his ilk.