Welsh Rugby is Contracting - It's Official

I am ashamed to admit that I took one look at the weather and I decided not to go to Bonymaen to watch the Pooler. Instead I reclined on the couch and flicked between watching the Dragons v Northampton and Racing v Toulouse whilst paying attention to the twitter feed from Ken Long who was braving the elements in Bonymaen. In the end, Pooler lost a close match 10-8 with the stormy conditions having a large influence on the result.

The Dragons’ match was not close at all and it was a salutary lesson for those who think that the Welsh regions could breeze into the English Premiership. Make no mistake, this was Northampton seconds who brushed most of the Dragons’ first team aside.

In France, I thought that the Welsh representatives in the Racing team acquitted themselves well and were all fully committed despite the first Six Nations game being only a week away. Mike Phillips was particularly prominent and at his spiky best. I assume the Welsh based members of the Welsh squad all had their feet up somewhere. I guess this is the harsh reality of playing in France.

So Sam Warburton is the first Welsh centrally contracted player - let’s hope that he is not the last! I don’t think it makes much sense having a small number and at the very least it should be two per region. Can the WRU afford this? Even at around quarter of a million pounds per player the WRU are still far short of Leigh Halfpenny’s reported deal in France and what I suppose George North got from Northampton. Are we wasting money battling against market forces when our pockets are not really deep enough I wonder? The whole subject of centrally funding players begs a lot of questions and we haven’t really been party to the WRU’s thinking yet. Who decides who is centrally contracted, how much they are paid and who they play for?

Of course, centrally funding one player hasn’t really solved any of the underlying issues that are tormenting Welsh rugby but at least it might be viewed as a statement of intent from the WRU. I watched last week’s Scrum V Special with a mixture of sadness and disbelief. It seems hard to imagine the issues being solved by those on view who seem content to waffle on without actually saying (or doing) anything. And then there was David Moffett who seems to want to throw his hat in the ring. His interpersonal skills will certainly not pour oil on stormy waters. What a mess!

We should be looking forward with eager anticipation to the Six Nations but somehow the political wrangling seems to still have centre stage. Perhaps they all hope that it will all go away like magic once we kick off against Italy. I have got news for them - it will not.

The one down side of the Six Nations is the lack of club rugby. Only one game scheduled for the Pooler in February - why?

Welsh Rugby Top Ten

Unfortunately the Pontypool v Llanharan game was rained off and so I turned to musing about Welsh rugby’s current mess. It’s quite sad really but I came up with this list of songs that sum up the situation as I see it:

1.         We don’t talk any more                                  Cliff Richard

2.         Money’s too tight to mention                           Simply Red

3.         Breakaway                                                    The Beach Boys

4.         I guess that’s why they call it the blues            Elton John

5.         Euros to me are everything                             The Real Thing

6.         These boots are made for walking                   Nancy Sinatra

7.         Lost in France (or finance)                              Bonnie Tyler

8.         Come back and stay                                      Paul Young

9.         If you leave me now                                        Chicago

10.       With or without you                                         U2

Close contenders are “Help” by the Beatles and “All I need is a miracle” by Mike and the Mechanics. I am sure that you can think of plenty of others.

I did watch a bit of the Heineken Cup on the TV and it is interesting to note that none of the current Welsh squad will be playing in the quarter finals.

Let’s hope the sun shines next weekend or I’ll be thinking of a top ten of films! 

Quick on the Draw

I had been away on holiday to grab some Winter sun and had missed the last two Pontypool games so I was in urgent need of a rugby fix as we headed for Bridgend Athletic. Recent games have been close affairs with the outcome still in the balance in the last few minutes so this was going to be a stern test for Pooler after their narrow defeat at home to Newbridge in the Cup last week.

The game was played in glorious sunny conditions but on a sticky pitch that had suffered from the ravages of the recent bad weather. The game was a really scrappy affair, littered with mistakes, with neither side able to achieve any measure of control for a significant period. Bridgend Athletic probably edged the first half in terms of territory and possession and deserved their 6-3 interval lead.

The second half was a little better with an early exchange of penalties taking the score to 9-6. Pooler scrum half Quick then had a clearance kick charged down by his opposite number who won the chase for the ball to score the first try of the game. The conversion was missed but a 14-6 lead in the context of this game looked pretty significant. To their credit, Pooler upped their game and responded with a penalty before Quick atoned for his earlier mistake by scoring try in the corner from an attacking scrum. Mills narrowly missed the conversion so the score was tied at 14-14 as the game entered the final quarter of an hour. The home side came back strongly but could not breach a determined Pooler defence. Pooler had a glorious chance to pinch the game with the last play of the game but Norton knocked on with line at his mercy.

A draw was probably a fair result at the end of the game as neither side really did enough to win. It was a good job that the game was relatively low scoring as there was no scoreboard and there weren’t any announcements!

I had hoped that when I came back from my holiday that the row in Welsh rugby between the WRU and the Regions would have been settled. Surprise, surprise the situation has deteriorated, if anything, with ultimata coming and going and much vitriol. A further surprise came when I heard David Moffett being interviewed on the radio. He wants to be the white knight who is going to come all the way from the Antipodes to sort Welsh (and European) rugby out. It puts me in mind of a Bonny Tyler song! I guess he would then move on to design an economic nuclear fusion reactor. The one thing in his favour is that he will speak his mind and might knock a few heads together but I thought that we had managed to get rid of him. I thought that ultimately the clubs ran Welsh rugby through the WRU. Is no one interested in what the smaller clubs think? In the real world, I think that a CEO would be more than a little concerned about his position if he presided over a debacle of this magnitude 

Quite simply the Welsh Regions have not got enough money or resources to compete at Heineken Cup level. Yes the players that they can afford can raise their games every now and then to gain an excellent victory. To do that for six games in the qualification stages, however, is beyond them as this season’s competition has demonstrated yet again. If it was a straight knock-out competition from the star, we might have a better chance. What the Heineken Cup is doing for us is accelerating the development of young players who just have to be thrown in at the deep end as the injuries to the senior players mount from squads already depleted by defections to France and England. This certainly has benefits for the national team but there is no prospect of a Welsh Region winning the Heineken Cup. Standing on the Bank in Pontypool, I wonder if it matters.

Happy New Year.