The Welsh Rugby Union have delivered their annual report, so what’s between the lines and the figures? Geraint Powell digs behind the summaries of those in charge for clues about where Welsh rugby is heading.

 

Every January – other than in the first year – the President of the United States delivers a “state of the union” address.

We always get something similar – a state of their own union – from the WRU chief executive, chairman and president in their forewords to the Union’s annual report, the 2017 version of which was recently released.

When looking at the current condition of the WRU pyramid, what thoughts do you imagine have been crossing the minds of Martyn Phillips and Gareth Davies and the rest of the WRU senior leadership?

In terms of Test rugby, it is likely they will be reasonably pleased with the overall situation. Head coach Warren Gatland led the British and Irish Lions to the moral victory of a drawn series in New Zealand, and with a pre-tour preparation schedule bordering on the downright ludicrous.

Given what happened on the tour, including selections, there appears little to argue over and little risk – from a Welsh perspective – of the divisions that caused such rifts for Graham Henry after the 2001 Lions tour. If anything, the controversial call-ups of several Welsh players might operate the other way.

It is a month until the autumn internationals, with fit Lions now back in action, but the current injury list looks reasonably low other than in the back row and where, thankfully, there is some depth.

A more flexible ticketing policy, with some good discounts, and which will, hopefully, be offset by increased merchandising/beverage sales, should see larger crowds. The Test match against the All Blacks on 25 November is already sold out.

Looking further ahead, the ominous dark cloud has been the re-emergence of England under Eddie Jones, a major event at the hemisphere level.

Within the confines of their inherent club v country conflict model, they are getting their coaching act together at Test level in a manner to take better advantage of their financial wealth and playing numbers. Wales snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Cardiff last season, and this season face a trip to Twickenham.

If England had the New Zealand model, it is unlikely it would be worthwhile for any other country to play Test rugby. If the New Zealand model had English financial wealth and player resources, there would definitely be no point in any other country playing Test rugby.

The English domestic model, though, for all the benefactor support and the BT Sport “money pit”, continues to bleed money for the club funding directors in the absence of sustainable cost controls.

At the regional level, the WRU leadership will currently be surveying a very mixed picture.

There is now a widespread consensus across the country that the 2003 model, even as amended in 2004 and 2014, will never be financially viable and sustainable in anything approaching the current flawed format. It is inherently unfit for purpose, as modernisation in Gwent is demonstrating.

It requires significant structural reform to boost both central and devolved income streams and to generate more efficient expenditure. It is certainly not an efficient integrated small country model for Welsh rugby to punch above its financial weight going forwards, even as greater efforts are being made to bolster that underlying financial weight.

The Scarlets are in a good place on the field, as they seek to defend their title in the newly expanded Guinness Pro14 format. The WRU concerns will be more in relation to the copious columns of red ink in the profit and loss account and balance sheet, which to date have been covered by funding directors.

It will be hoped that better monetising their recent success, new Pro14 revenues from South Africa, and a new domestic TV contract from next season will buy time in the far west, for leaks suggest there will be little increase in European tournament TV revenues from 2018.

Importantly, English TV income and RFU payments/subsidies are now fixed for some years rather than imminently inflationary. The only upsurge would be as a result of reckless short-term future behaviour by club funding directors, such as unexpectedly further increasing the salary cap or excluding more marquee players.

Those two dozen salary cap-exempted marquee berths, perhaps more with some creative accounting, remain a threat to Welsh rugby, as Dan Biggar has recently reminded us.

The WRU have acquired the Dragons, together with the Rodney Parade freehold, and they now have control over the salvage job there over the next three years.

Investor David Buttress has been appointed to lead the business, Bernard Jackman the team. Both are eminently qualified. The risks there are both known and manageable, with an exit strategy in the unlikely event of failure.

The dip in on field performance since March at the Ospreys will be a matter of growing unease for the Union. The region have been the strongest on and off the field in many regional era seasons. They have additionally recently dominated the internal market for dual centrally contracted Test players.

Unless there is some imminent upturn in playing fortunes, the WRU will have to start to assess whether head coach Steve Tandy may have lost the dressing room or whether there is a deeper organisational malaise without the driving force of former chief executive Andrew Hore.

For running a region out of Swansea and another out of Llanelli will always present a considerable commercial challenge, even with modern municipal funded stadia under favourable lease terms.

It is unlikely the WRU are pleased by the departure of Biggar to Northampton next season, including the early announcement, or by the risk of Rhys Webb also departing. There are only two ‘wild card’ picks in 2019-20 under the unfit for purpose 2014 RSA contract, in a pivotal World Cup year.

The region of most pressing concern will be the troubled Cardiff Blues. If the WRU chairman was aware of the problems in Gwent from his brief stint as regional chief executive, including the troublesome three company structure at Rodney Parade, he will know ‘off by heart’ the issues at the Arms Park from his pre-regional time there as both star player and CEO.

The deteriorating financial situation and the petering out of the Danny Wilson era cannot but concern the WRU, for the long-delayed rebuilding of the Arms Park impacts directly upon them (literally, in the form of connected stands and the concrete cancer within “Glanmor’s Gap”).

The on-field situation will not be improved by lengthy injury absences for Sam Warburton and Ellis Jenkins, and Gareth Anscombe is being badly missed with two similar non-Welsh centres with such limited distribution skills, but the off-field problems in this region have always proved far more intractable.

The governance is both non-regional and archaic, veteran chairman Peter Thomas long restricted to giving “loans” because he is unable to purchase further substantial equity under a constitution that feels more of the Benjamin Disraeli era than of the John Major era.

The complete severance between an Athletic Club run Cardiff RFC and a private investor and/or WRU run region is long overdue, irrespective of whether a long-term lessor/lessee relationship remains or whether the region relocates next door and/or elsewhere.

The current old stadium is serving no purpose. It is becoming too big for the region, who already play one Welsh derby match next door each season and could easily play two more, let alone for Cardiff RFC. Building a yet bigger stadium, without greater regional engagement and a more successful team, seems counter-productive in rugby match day terms.

The WRU leadership will undoubtedly appreciate that the wider semi-professional club game is in somewhat of a state of limbo.

The logical end result of regionalism should be for full regional “A” teams to take over the main burden of the pathway role, but this is not an attainable short-term or even a medium-term goal when some of the regions are currently surrounded by so much apathy and downright hostility.

Improved profile through TV coverage will very much depend upon the outcome of the next Pro14 TV contract, and where that leaves terrestrial broadcasters in 2018 and particularly S4C.

The WRU leadership will be all too aware that last season’s format proved unpopular (and which has seen the WRU listen and reform), and that a number of WRU National Championship clubs (not just Pontypool RFC) are eyeing promotion to the WRU Premiership when the current ring fence, that is hopelessly indefensible on any objective strategic ring fencing criteria (if meritocracy is again rejected), comes to an end.

The WRU leadership will be hoping for improved results from the Regional Premiership Selects, for they will be all too aware of their already weak commercial self-funding position as a consumer offering and their only justification can be pathway and on field improvement.

The grassroots participant club game below the semi-pro club game is facing sustained changing societal pressures, and I think nearly everybody appreciates this.

This is not just upon youth rugby (under pressure with the loss of the cream to the regional age teams and to schools/college rugby) and 2nd XV rugby, but upon the financial lifeblood of 1st XV rugby itself.

The WRU leadership may possibly privately prefer in an ideal world to have 100+ clubs each fielding three senior male adult teams than 300+ clubs each fielding one senior male adult team, for it would be logical from a blank piece of paper perspective, but they will equally know that the tribal history and nature of Welsh rugby makes any such structural alteration simply unfeasible and unattainable.

The growth of women’s rugby, and girls’ summer cluster centres, and alternative forms of rugby such as touch, may improve the position of some clubs. It will certainly have the potential to increase additional public funding streams in these times of diversity, and guidance from the WRU itself to its member clubs on best securing such funding will remain important.

But, ultimately, the WRU itself is just the collective of the circa 320 member clubs, and the WRU leadership will have to work hard to improve the situation of the de facto “shareholders” who rely upon central funding and their 1st XV match, sponsorship and clubhouse income.

For, 14 years into regionalism, with a pathway firmly based primarily upon schools districts (based heavily on local authority boundaries) feeding into regional academies, which will require the nine historic WRU districts to be replaced by five devolved regional rugby sub-boards better aligned with both this pathway and the representative regional teams, we can still easily associate most of the current Welsh national squad with a specific semi-professional and/or grassroots rugby club.

For all the inevitable focus on the official “state of the union” and the solving of the long-troubled regional rugby tier of the pyramid, the WRU remains a union of clubs.