April Fool

APRIL FOOL

As the first day of April looms arrives once again, my mind inevitably goes back to All Fools Day 2003, twenty years ago, when the then chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union, David Moffett, gleefully announced that the Welsh premier clubs had agreed to form five so-called ‘regional’ sides. Although we did not quite grasp it at the time, Moffett had just announced the death of top-flight club rugby in the valleys of South Wales. Still, the purpose of this article is not to look back in anger, although the wounds are deep. Rather, it is to ponder on the way that the game of rugby football has developed under the regional system.

It is generally accepted at the moment that Welsh rugby is in a crisis on and off the field. Our national side is losing game after game, is the lowest ranked of the four home nations, and even being beaten by sides such as Italy and Georgia. Our under-twenty side lost all its games in the six-nations competition, often by large margins. All our regions are in the bottom half of the United Rugby Championship, whereas all four Irish sides are in the top half, Glasgow are fourth, and even Italian side Benetton is above all the Welsh regions. Great clubs like Neath and Pontypool are languishing in the third tier of Welsh club rugby and recently Llanelli were unable to put out a side to play Pontypridd.

The roots of the crisis lie in the decisions made in 2003, when instead of a proper regional set up controlled completely by the WRU, we settled for a ‘super club’ model controlled by the ‘benefactors’. Five regions quickly became four when the Celtic Warriors folded, and the poor Dragons had to be bailed out by the WRU in 2017. The set up has failed to build a strong support base in the communities allegedly served by the regions, as shown by the empty seats in televised games. No one from Newport would go to watch a team with Cardiff in its title, very few travel down from the valleys to Rodney Parade or the Arms Park, and even fewer would cross the Lougher from Llanelli to watch a team playing in Swansea.

The comparison with the Irish provincial sides is significant. In 1995 we played Leinster at Donnybrook, where a crowd of about 6000 were crammed into the small ground. Now Leinster regularly attract crowds in excess of 30,000 and have sold out all the 50,000 seats at the Aviva Stadium on a few occasions. In 1999 we played Munster at the old Thomond Park, in front of about 8,000. Now Munster also regularly attract crowds in excess of 25,000 and got 41,000 for a game against South Africa A last November. Even Connacht regularly get 8,000 watching them at their Galway Sportsground. The Irish provinces have grown their crowd bases and their income revenue in a way that our regions have failed to do.

It is difficult to see a way ahead for Welsh rugby at the moment. I am reminded of the old joke, where an American tourist turns up in a remote country lane in West Cork and asks a farmer for the best way to get to Dublin, and the farmer replies, “Well Sir, if I was you, I wouldn’t start from here.” Logic, economics, and the size of the Welsh population, suggests that we cannot afford to run four regions based on the ‘super club’ model. The crowd base isn’t there, and the money isn’t there. However, I do not envy the task of the WRU in trying to get us out of this mess. Hard choices have to be made and decisive action taken and we have to wonder whether the changes to the management structure will do the job. We must wait and see.

Alun Granfield