Continuing our countdown to the new Guinness Pro 14 season, Geraint Powell looks at the Cardiff Blues and assesses whether or not astute coaching and promising youngsters can overcome financial constraints and shifting priorities.
The Cardiff Blues are always the most difficult Welsh region to analyse pre-season and far more so than the Ospreys (http://www.dai-sport.com/ospreys-ready-fly-back-shadows/) or the Scarlets (http://www.dai-sport.com/scarlets-bloodline-williams-halfpenny-will-keep-pumping-top-pro14/).
Unlike the recently failed Newport Gwent Dragons, now the Dragons under WRU member club ownership, they have not been operating on a shoestring budget over many years thanks in particular to the benevolence of chairman Peter Thomas.
Nevertheless, since the creation of the regions in 2003, the Blues have consistently converted their whole into less than the sum of their parts. In fact, they have consistently done so in a manner worthy of an art form. They have been not so much the sleeping giants of Welsh rugby as the comatose giants of European rugby.
If Dai Young, arguably the best local candidate in the global market place to replace Warren Gatland as Welsh national coach in 2020, could not win a single Pro12 title with them . . . ?
The Blues had/have all the ingredients to bake a wonderful regional rugby cake.
The region is headquartered in the capital city and in terms of population and potential service sector commercial income in a now heavily deindustrialised Welsh economy, there is much to build upon.
This is reinforced with the strength of rugby in the winter sports market in the player development club heartlands of the eastern Glamorgan valleys.
It has wealthy funding directors, one in particular, and other directors with highly desirable skill sets across business, sport and the law. What better board director is there to send to entice a potential new player recruit than Sir Gareth Edwards?
Aled Summerhill in action for the Barbarians.But it has mostly so far been ruined by the adding of the sour ingredients of archaic club governance, consistently weak management, and stakeholders obviously at cross purposes. The icing sugar of representation has consistently been replaced by saturation in the malt vinegar of a divisive obsession with one club’s heritage to the exclusion of the other 74 regional clubs.
Nothing damages regional rugby more than some fans at a single club having a misplaced sense of entitlement to top flight rugby, to be subsidised by external wealth and the other clubs of the union. The real price of a gifted monopoly player pathway is fan representation, across the pathway.
Despite the almost customary off-field soap opera this year about the WRU “baby sitting” them (why would they want to do that on terms acceptable to the Blues?) during a desperately financially needed stadium redevelopment, the off-loading of a non-Welsh marquee ex-Springbok recruit prior to his arrival from Ulster, and the decision of Leigh Halfpenny not to return when the Scarlets became an option, the Blues have a solid head coach in Danny Wilson and a decent squad with significant developmental and enhancement potential in the years ahead.
Whilst the Blues are undoubtedly thin on top quality players at the peak of their powers, with the obvious exception of Sam Warburton, Alex Cuthbert and Gareth Anscombe, they do have a mixture of quality experienced veterans with their best years behind them (Gethin Jenkins, Matthew Rees, Nick Williams, Taufa’ao Filise etc) and numerous bright future prospects in the early years of their careers (Ellis Jenkins, Aled Summerhill, Jarrod Evans, Macauley Cook, Garyn Smith, Dillon Lewis, Seb Davies, Rhun Williams, Tomos Williams, Harri Millard, Ben Jones, Ethan Lewis, Corey Domachowski, Kieron Assirati, Brad Thyer, Owen Lane, Jim Botham, Shane Lewis-Hughes and Callum Bradbury etc).
As with any team dependent upon a combination of veterans and youth, good fortune with injuries will be critical in any campaign and they have already had the misfortune of a significant hamstring injury to the intelligent Jenkins in pre-season. Anscombe, Nick Williams, Matthew Rees, and one of George Earle/Damian Welch look particularly irreplaceable.
The Blues struggled badly with a mid-season injury list last season, particularly unable to punch across the gain line when Nick Williams was absent and with no lesser quality but broadly “like for like” back-up. If too many young players are simultaneously blooded, that might pay handsome dividends in future seasons but will impact negatively upon 2017-18.
Striking the right balance will be important. For example, whether Matthew Rees or Kristian Dacey starts at hooker will have a significant input into the props required to balance both the set piece and the other duties of a modern front row forward. If the front row is under scrum pressure, it becomes more difficult to play with (the still filling out) young Seb Davies or lock/blindside Macauley Cook in the second row.
The defence looked a problematic area with the departure of the highly rated Graham Steadman, for even he had been unable to plug it properly last season given the extensive injury list on such a fast home 3G surface, but the employment of Welsh assistant coach Shaun Edwards on a part-time consultancy basis offers renewed hope for the coming campaign.
Together with the appointment of Bernard Jackman as head coach at the Dragons, it also increases the personal influence of Wales head coach Warren Gatland over the two historically underperforming regions in South East Wales.
The Blues have been drawn in the arguably stronger Conference A of the Pro14, and will do well to qualify from a conference that also includes Munster, Glasgow, the Ospreys and the Cheetahs. And a European Challenge Cup pool that includes Toulouse, Lyon and Sale is somewhat unfortunate. Blues fans will be hoping for French disinterest, with Top 14 matters prioritised. Qualification for the 2018-19 European Champions Cup should be the minimum target of the Blues, and anything/everything beyond that a bonus.
Perhaps the real decisive acquisition by Wilson in the longer term, rather than Edwards or what was hoped to have been Halfpenny and Franco van der Merwe, will turn out to be Clive Jones as the new development director.
Too often young talent has left the Blues, only to flourish elsewhere e.g. Tom Young, Cory Hill, Luke Hamilton. At the same time, with an abundance of young and raw riches on their door step, the Blues have imported some dubious players.
The Blues have the difficult task, forced upon them by financial circumstances rather than of their own volition, of repositioning themselves from a player enhancement culture inherited from the Cardiff RFC (ask older Bridgend RFC/Pontypridd RFC fans about this!) to a future genuine player development culture more historically associated with other former 1st class clubs.
For, even on the best case scenario of an indoor arena, there will be so many fingers in the income stream pie that the Blues share will still likely be far less than some are naively anticipating. But chairman Peter Thomas cannot put the Blues through, at least without writing-off his outstanding loans of many years.
If any development coach can successfully manage this transition, it will be the ever astute and culturally sensitive Clive Jones. His player development CV in this area is unchallenged, so the only real question is whether the Blues will give him the free hand that he will require and without meddling from others far less knowledgeable on such matters?
There has been a widespread perception across the region in recent years, rightly or wrongly, that the Blues age grade development has been more down to Coleg y Cymoedd and strong schools district age grade teams than the final work of the regional academy. Now the Blues have the benefit of the Cardiff & Vale college equivalent in the “southern province”.
The Blues have had a short but productive and successful pre-season, a mostly second team winning 34-23 at London Scottish and then a mostly first team hosting and defeating English Champions Exeter 21-20. The stand out form player, scoring five tries across the two matches in addition to the rest of his contribution, has been rising star/speedster Aled Summerhill.
So, somewhat bizarrely, I find myself far more confident about the prospects for the coming season than many depressed Blues fans – albeit with the caveat of a good prevailing headwind in relation to avoiding injuries and beating the injury odds with so many heavy mileage veterans. Ellis Jenkins has already been lost, and the Blues will only have a limited resilience to further squad depletion.
The key for the Blues this season will be laying the foundations on and off the pitch for future business sustainability and playing success well beyond next season, and successfully managing that long delayed transition to a player development culture across the organisation.
Their season begins on Friday evening, as they entertain Richard Cockerill’s Edinburgh district. They will be disappointed with any opening result other than a win.
Firstly, an interesting article IF you have any interest in Pro 14 Rugby however, Frankly, at this stage I have no interest at all in how any of the superclubs perform let alone the Blues, and while the article does mention a few of the real issues facing the Cardiff Superclub and while I accept the purpose of the article is to attempt to generate interest in the Pro 14 and not to address the real issues that have lead to the decline and failure of the superclub experiment over the last 14 years. This is the problem that the media continually ignores the the real issues and structural failures and deflect any attention on to the here an now will a welsh superclub win the Pro 14.
Cardiff’s financial problems directly stem from 2 things firstly the incompetence and mismanagement by the owners of the club and their constant interference in the rugby side of the club, the ethos of the club which is elitist and stagnates development, if your face doesn’t fit. Secondly , the political power the club wields within the WRU to ensure its preferential treatment and its control of the media to push its propaganda. Where would Cardiff actually be if not for the fact that it is the play thing of a millionaire, who has no interest in the success of welsh Rugby as a whole, and continually demands to be with the elite because were a good side decades ago.
The real issue that needs to be exposed is that the Cardiff superclub has deliberately interfered in the clubs that were sacrificed at its alter or survival as it is threatened by any form of challenge or success as its 14 years of failure and decline are systematic of the Cuperclub structure, and the hypocricy of the superclub being baled out by the WRU in anyway is staggering beyond belief as we should never forget that this club alohas on a number of times opted out or threatened to opt out of the Welsh system in a desperate bid to maintain its privileged position.
Kids, don’t do drugs