It’s that time of the season when much of Welsh rugby looks on enviously at where the action still is – in Europe, at the top end of the Pro12, or at those off on summer tours. Gareth Hughes reckons there’s a lot happening elsewhere, but only change can stir activity at home.

 

With no Welsh representation in any of the semi-finals of the European competitions and Wales finishing fifth in the Six Nations, it is a good time to assess the condition of the nation’s elite teams.

Reading, watching and listening to the words and thoughts of the professional commentators as well as the amateur of the last few months, much has been made of a disappointing season for Wales on the international stage.

The regions, too, have on the whole been unimpressive, despite the occasional flash of form by the Cardiff Blues, Ospreys and Scarlets they have not made their bright starts to the campaign count. The sad demise of the Newport Gwent Dragons appears to epitomise that the game is in the midst of a crisis, with participation falling and clubs failing.

It is easy to be negative, to use the various media stages to use frank and destructive apocalyptic language but there is an obligation to be constructive and it was disappointing to see that many of the critics and the apologist pundits failed to put up any realistic alternatives to explain or change the perceived decline across the game in the country. Apart from apportioning blame, the silence on how to take the game forward is deafening.

As the bones of Wales’ Six Nation’s performance are picked over it does illustrate how small the margins are between success and failure. What if Liam Williams had scored that fourth try in Rome? What if Jonathan Davies had kicked the ball into touch in the last minute against England to give Wales the chance to re-group?

What if Rhys Webb’s disallowed tries against Scotland had been given and Leigh Halfpenny had kicked his goals? Would that have provided the quality of season that an apparently disgruntled Welsh supporter would have found satisfactory? Or is the sense of pessimism abroad in the game partly or wholly manufactured by a destructive section of the media?

When Warren Gatland accepted the honour of coaching the 2017 Lions, Rob Howley and his team had to hold the fort and it is a moot point as to whether they managed that. The team is visibly ageing and the warriors of 2011 and 2013 are slipping away. The emphasis should have been on succession and building depth to the squad, but the hammering off the Wallabies put Howley into damage control mode and the chance to blood players was lost. The likes of Thomas Young, Keelan Giles and Steff Evans should have been selected, but were not.

It means that the forthcoming tour to the Pacific Islands must be utilised. Players from the successful Wales U20s must be fast-tracked into the system. Look at the group of England players Eddie Jones is taking to Argentina. Wales must follow suit.

The four Welsh regions, though, are in a much darker place. Their underperformance amply illustrates the problems coming from an inadequate structure.

Overall, the pool of quality players available in Wales at the moment is too shallow to realistically challenge for European honours or even the Pro12. The coaching has, in general, failed to instil the ‘edge’ essential to win critical games, especially evident at the Ospreys, whose recent travails are perplexing and disappointing.

The failure to get the best out of the players at their disposal and, equally, the players’ consistent inability to perform under pressure, appears endemic. Not one of the regions can look back at this season with anything other than disappointment.

Welsh rugby finds itself at a crossroads and the WRU now needs to display real leadership or the game could tumble into freefall. There is no doubt that Wales has some of the finest players in the northern hemisphere, but the structure they find themselves in is not getting the best out of them.

It is why so many look to ply their trade elsewhere. It is not a long career and a player with the ambition to win trophies needs to leave. Of course, in the end it comes down to money. Professional sport is a business and that means that tough decisions need to be made, and taken swiftly. The lessons of Australia and South Africa need to be heeded, if you expand the game too fast, then you dilute your product and interest will wane.

‘Wales can only afford two competitive regions’, says Blues board member Martyn Ryan as the Blues face up to a £1.4 million loss. He added that without a massive change in approach the regions will slip further behind. Perhaps, there is a kernel of truth here.

The budgets of the Irish provinces, the IRFU’s astute use of ‘project players’, the huge TV deals for the AVIVA Premiership and the Top14, as well as the SRU pumping money into the Glasgow Warriors means not only do they keep their best players, but they can attract a coach as good as Dave Rennie.

Wales is in danger of being left behind. The WRU has to take control by centrally contracting the players, creating two regions based around Cardiff and Swansea, then ensuring they have the financial clout to compete. This would be extremely painful, but if the game is to survive and the national team is to be seen as the pinnacle of the game, then hard calls have to be made.

What Ryan advocates must not be seen as a panacea, yet to do nothing is not an option, either. Such a dramatic approach would end the elements that have been at the forefront of Welsh rugby, the clubs, but since the inception of the ‘regions’ that relationship has become at best tenuous. Tradition and history are valuable commodities and must be treated with respect, but they should be regarded as springboards rather than something with which to hold the country back.

The WRU, the regions, and the supporters know that something has to give. The sad turmoil at Newport RFC and the Dragons is the symptom of a compromise too far, the consequence of an ill-considered structure imposed upon a community. Of course, the clubs must continue. Their roles are critical and their role in the new structure should be clearly defined.

But they will not be the basis to success in the cut-throat world of modern day rugby. The WRU have to admit the errors of the past and establish a system that does not copy others but is uniquely Welsh, sustainable and attractive to supporters.

No more glossy brochures and ephemeral targets, but something constructed pragmatically, without compromise, and properly supported financially.