The Ospreys hammered the Cardiff Blues 46-24 in the first of the Guinness Pro12 Welsh derby matches. But it is not only on the pitch where there is a marked difference between the two regions, argues Geraint Powell.

 

The Pro12 derby match between the Ospreys and the Blues is so much more than a rugby match, not merely a clash of East v West but, a clash between entirely opposing regional rugby cultures and philosophies.  The neutrals mostly drawn towards Ospreylia.

Between a team/business that has fully bought into the regional concept, and landed the league 4 times as a consequence and provided the engine of the Welsh national squad for many years.  And a team/business that resolutely refuses to get with the regional future, antagonising its own hinterland and from where it draws most of its indigenous playing talent, failing to win the league at all and consistently under performing and now in debt to Chairman Peter Thomas to the tune of about £8 million.  Loose change in terms of business debt to Saracens fans, maybe, but staggering for most Welsh rugby fans.

“We represent you and your club as your region” versus “come to us if you want but we are what we are and always have been and we are not changing our club heritage for you or your club“.  Inclusivity versus exclusivity, commercial nous versus heritage dogma, arguably even humility versus arrogance.  The futility of watching good employees trying to sell a toxic regional brand, a club brand not severed off by the major shareholders so that it could rightfully maintain its positive historic club pre-eminence within Welsh rugby but within the parameters of the WRU Premiership.  In a generation’s time, on the current trajectory and without major structural reform, very few in the eastern half of South Wales will be watching any rugby other than “Team Wales”.

Nobody likes admitting they have made a mistake, and I am no exception to the rule.  When I carried out this quick Twitter straw poll as to views on the likely result between the Ospreys and the Blues on Friday evening:

I must confess that I subconsciously dismissed the apparent “extreme” result as a narrow straw poll of what people wanted the result to be rather than what they really thought it would be.  It felt suspiciously 1-sided even allowing for the Blues only achieving 1 win and 1 draw from their 13 Pro 12 visits to Ospreylia in the regional (at least for the home team) era.  A reflection of the widespread popularity of the Ospreys and the widespread unpopularity of the Blues, rather than an accurate assessment of the impending match based on the recent form of both teams.

I won’t make that mistake again after watching that 7 try drubbing by the Ospreys, underestimating some very knowledgeable rugby people when their collective views were so decisively expressed.  So much for my theory of a likely narrow Ospreys win.  The Blues were blown away, fortunate to finish second.

Yes, the Ospreys would be slight favourites on the basis of home advantage and their long-term domination over the Blues, but the Ospreys no longer have on paper a front 5 that can easily bully the Blues into submission.  A front 5 that could include the likes of Adam Jones, Duncan Jones, Paul James, Huw Bennett, Richard Hibbard, Alun Wyn Jones and Ian “Ianto” Evans and mashing up the Blues pack year after year.

The Blues have been steadily improving under Danny Wilson, even if they remain very much a work in progress at this stage.  A mixture of veterans and youth, but thin on players in between and at their peak.  Missing the exiled Leigh Halfpenny and Jamie Roberts, not just Bradley Davies who preferred the Ospreys option to returning “home” to the Blues.  The wrong side of the M4, if narrowly, to have any emotional allegiance to the Blues as a regional entity.  District C bred, not District B.

The Blues were demolished, physically over powered and a final score that included 2 consolation tries after the Ospreys had rung the changes for this Friday’s Challenge Cup home match against Newcastle and with Sam Davies leaving a few Ospreys points out on the pitch.  The Ospreys homework done, a job on the Blues done, the gain line bossed and Nick Williams completely neutralised.  A lightweight Blues second row ultimately exposed without their being able to over compensate elsewhere in the loose.

The turning point was at the end of the first quarter, after a promising early 10-3 lead to the Blues after the Ospreys butchered a break-out try scoring opportunity and thanks to some wonderfully streetwise (if totally illegal) buffering from Ellis Jenkins (above) in front of the maul setting Josh Turnbull to facilitate a driving lineout try, being the sin binning of Dan Fish from a botched exit and which could easily have been compounded within minutes by a further sin binning in an overlap situation of Josh Turnbull for lazy running but for a moment of leniency by Nigel Owens.

Dan Fish was reminded of all of this a few times yesterday by another rugby crowd, where I was a neutral at the Beddau v Glamorgan Wanderers match in the WRU Championship.

Absolutely great to see him coaching Glamorgan Wanderers yesterday, for whom his brother plays, already contributing back into the club game.  There is but one WRU pyramid, despite the efforts of some to sever it into ever more of a disjointed mess.  Things happen, in the spur of the moment.  Sometimes a team weathers a sin binning, sometimes it doesn’t.  Friday was unfortunately the latter for Dan Fish and for the Blues.

4 tries in 20 mins, the floodgates initially opening with him in the bin, from Alun Wyn Jones, Eli Walker (2) and Dmitri Arhip.  27-10 to the Ospreys at half-time.  Bonus point already secured.  Ben John adding a 5th try only 23 secs into the 2nd half, with the lightest of finger contact but enough under the current laws.  34-10.  Dan Evans adding a 6th in the 46th min.  39-10.  Game over, no way back for the Blues.  The entire Ospreys front row replaced as early as the 53rd min, Justin Tipuric replaced by the returning from Twickenham injury Dan Lydiate 2 mins later.  Later consolation tries for Tom James and Rey Lee-Lo, another Ospreys try for Josh Matavesi (a great line and smashing through the unfortunate Gareth Anscombe) sandwiched in between.  46-24.

A reality check for some, expectations radically re-set, but the Blues are travelling in the right direction on the field under an excellent technical coach in Danny Wilson.  His team analysis of the second and third quarters tomorrow will make painful viewing for many, but evenings like Friday can do long-term good.  Willis Halaholo of NZ’s Hurricanes region will soon arrive and strengthen the midfield, but they are missing an enforcer lock.  Bradley Davies lining up alongside Alun Wyn Jones to add insult to injury.

But an ex-All Blacks lock and ex-Wallabies prop unable to find the form/fitness/health to get in the Blues side.  An ex-Wallabies prop that can’t even get in the Cardiff club side, omitted from the Blues European campaign squad, surely bound for the exit door sooner rather than later unless there is a temporary undisclosed medical issue?

Neath/Swansea have been lucky, but they have also made some of their own “luck”.  A share of a state organised and retailer funded new stadium, yes, but also a clear club neutral regional identity and the purchase of Bridgend RFC reinforcing.  A wonderful corporate hospitality and business networking product.  A replica jersey sales phenomenon at times, extending well outside of Ospreylia itself.  The default region of the unattached Welsh rugby fan.  The One True Region.

And all this achieved despite having the 4th region a few miles away in Llanelli, not as logic would dictate in North Wales.  If all West Wales rugby fans piled into one alternating venue, the Liberty would be rocking instead of empty at each end (below) and Parc y Scarlets would be packed for almost every match.  With Colwyn Bay pure uplift.

Cardiff have in contrast more often than not frustratingly been their own worst enemy.  A hibernating Blues region giant, unable to awake.  Not embracing the East Glamorgan valleys in terms of identity with the demise of the Celtic Warriors in 2004, not negotiating harder the terms of their Leckwith tenancy (including apparently no break clause, if they were going to gamble on the move whilst retaining their narrow club branding), not earlier taking a long lease with redevelopment rights of the Arms Park to provide the non-match day income unavailable in Leckwith.  Out of step with Welsh rugby, not productively so and missing what others fail to spot, but downright out of order at times.

A flawed business model, from what should be the powerhouse rugby region inclusive of the national capital and the post-industrial service sector economic engine driving the entire Welsh economy.  Their only business hope now being to redevelop a partisan club ground to boost ancillary non-match day income as a dual use venue, taking old club antagonisms forwards for generations.  What a mess.

Once again, the Ospreys will have been reasonably happy with the crowd.  They have the double whammy of the golden era of Swansea City FC and of the Scarlets on their door step, but remain the best attended Welsh region.  Few Blues fans travel, even within South Wales.  After a slow start in 2003-05, as Neath/Swansea in those club grounds, most Ospreys crowds for this particular Pro12 fixture have been around 10,000 or above.

Currently a long way short of the high tide of 16,509 in 2007-08, before Swansea City FC joined the English soccer elite, but still a steady base.

But still from this weekend 2 big warning shots across the bows of Welsh rugby, one from Llanelli and one from Dublin.

With one pro rugby derby in the Port Talbot-Neath-Llanelli triangle on Friday evening, huge question marks over whether it could sustain another one exactly 24 hours later?

We got our answer, unambiguously so.  A resounding “no“.  A less than 15,000 stadium, about a third full.  So much for non-Welsh away fans.  24 hours later and still no sign of a declared official attendance.  Never a good sign.  Probably for the best, saving me the hassle of having to once again explain the difference between sold/given tickets out (including all ST holders, whether attending or on holiday in the Balearics) and human bodies in.  A North Wales pro region, if you please, rather than two West Wales pro regions in the West Wales pro region.

The Dragons building a commanding 20-7 lead, then frustratingly if not unpredictably frittering it away to an end 27-31 defeat.  2 bonus points though.

If Welsh rugby can’t play a double header at the WRU Stadium, in preferably Round 5 rather than Round 6 , then at least play it at the Liberty Stadium if the combined separate attendances in Swansea and Llanelli are going to be well within that stadium’s capacity.

And an even bigger warning shot from across the Irish Sea, the annual Leinster v Munster match at the Aviva in Dublin.  No double header this one, Connacht having welcomed and defeated Ulster 30-25 in Galway on Friday evening.  The “home” Dublin side winning 25-14 at the Aviva, in front of 40,000+ fans.

A provincial rugby broad church this, no eastern South Wales “super” club cults.  Remember the 40,000+ crowd at the WRU Stadium, sweating that asset, for the Blues v Ospreys semi-final of the EDF Cup in 2006-07, before the real back sliding began from regional rugby in some quarters with the hope that the pesky “regionalism” would all go away apart from the free player development pathway into the academies?  “No taxation without representation“, as the American colonists used to object to such mind sets.

The WRU member clubs overwhelmingly voted against the “super” club concept in 2003, in favour of representative regions.

Ospreylia reminds them, and all of us, why.  They sent another reminder on Friday evening.

This article first appeared on The VietGwent, a Welsh rugby blog. https://thevietgwent.wordpress.com/2016/10/09/ospreylia-46-bluesonia-24-the-lessons-learnt/