Hawkins highlights pathway problem
DON’T go Joe!” That was the plaintive cry around Wales last week as news emerged that Ospreys centre Joe Hawkins had signed a contract that will see him move to Exeter Chiefs next season.
Not the news that Warren Gatland would have wanted to read over his cornflakes, and certainly not what any of the Ospreys management, coaches, players or fans would have wanted to hear. Cue more soul searching, finger pointing and calls for heads to roll!
That takes up to eight the number of Welsh players who are now in Rob Baxter’s stable at Sandy Park. He has the twin peaks, Welsh internationals Dafydd Jenkins and Christ Tshiunza, Wales U20 caps Iestyn Harris, Dan John, Oli Burrows and Iwan Jenkins, as well as Wales U19 scrum-half Orson James.
And Luke Evans, the 6ft 8ins tall Wales U18 lock, is set to switch from Y Pant School, in Llantrisant, to take up residence at Exeter College for his sixth form years this summer having joined the Chiefs academy set-up. Who said the Welsh regional pathway isn’t producing players good enough to play at the highest level of club rugby!
The problem is, particularly given the current parlous financial state of the professional game in Wales, our best young players are ripe for the picking. All seven at Exeter are under 25, with Hawkins, Jenkins and Tshiunza among the best players produced by the Welsh pathway in recent seasons.
It is not how any of us would have envisaged things working out for our most promising youngsters, but can you really blame them? Don’t point the finger at Hawkins for cashing in on his undoubted talent.
Given the falling salaries at the regions he was forced at the age of 20 to take the agonising decision of putting his personal future ahead of his international career. If he is going to earn as much over four years at the Chiefs as he might make in a decade at the Ospreys, can you really blame him for taking the step he has?
Playing for Wales is a huge honour, but it isn’t supposed to come at a huge personal price. In my playing days, I stuck with the Ospreys because I was being well looked after and I wanted to play for Wales as often as I could.
Looking back, maybe I should have taken the offer I had from Toulon to go and play in France. I’d have been much better off financially and I could have ended up being a Heineken Champions Cup winners as well. Faced with the same choice now, I think I’d have gone in a heartbeat.
The word on the street is that
“Playing for Wales is a huge honour, but it isn’t supposed to come at a huge personal price”
Ioan Lloyd could well be heading back to Wales from Bristol Bears, but there is no news on what is going to happen to Leicester Tigers back row poacher, Tommy Reffell. Don’t get me wrong, it would be fantastic to have all the best Welsh players back playing in the regions, but is that ever likely to happen again?
The cap law has dropped from 60 to 25, which was supposed to give the regions the chance of holding onto their best young players for at least two, three-year contract cycles, but this week’s news has blown that prospect out of the water. The question now is ‘who’s next’ and how many will follow Hawkins’ lead.
Uncapped Cardiff centre Max Llewelyn is off to Gloucester next season, Ross Moriarty has joined Brive with immediate effect and Jarrod Evans seems destined to end up at Harlequins as understudy to Marcus Smith next season when his contract at Cardiff expires this summer. Ospreys prop Nicky Smith is being chased by Saracens and the summer shopping spree isn’t going to end there.
It’s time to take a sharp intake of breath, keep calm and try to rationalise where the game in Wales is heading. It is blindingly obvious that the pathway for players needs revising. Wales U20 didn’t win a game in the Six Nations, Wales U18 were just hammered by England and 10 of the 26 players in the squad currently taking part in the U18 Six Nations Festival are from schools and colleges outside Wales.
The battle for the best talent is starting at U15 and U16 level and the Premiership clubs in England are beginning to win the battle for hearts and minds with our youngsters. That is something that has to be addressed immediately. Then we have to fix the competition structure between U16-U23 level to ensure there is a truly challenging environment in which the players can develop. Part of the problem is they only play against each other from U15-U18 level and aren’t tested against other opposition outside the international arena.
But bringing things back to Joe Hawkins, the key question now is whether or not he is going to be eligible for Wales from now on. Exeter’s rugby director Rob Baxter suggested he felt he would be, but how can he be with a mere five caps – 20 below the current minimum for inclusion if you play outside Wales?
I just hope we don’t end up in a fight between a national coach who quite rightly wants his best players available to him, and the Professional Rugby Board, who run the top-flight game in Wales. Having just seen them reach a six-year agreement with the WRU, I’d hate to see a return to the bad old ways and days of mistrust and intrigue.
Hawkins made a brave decision. As far as most people are concerned, he waved goodbye to his chances of playing in the World Cup this year and for Wales until he returns home. If somebody finds a way to circumvent the rules then I feel that could be even more damaging than the loss of the player himself.
He’s made his bed . . .