Wales are coming off the back of a third 6 Nations Grand Slam in 7
years, a very successful RWC campaign with a young team and the Ospreys winning
the Pro 12, playing some great rugby on their way. So all Welshmen should be
expecting a series white-wash of a slightly dodgy looking Australia, Heineken
cup finals next season, a decade of emulating the Greats of the 70s, dominating
northern hemisphere rugby, right?
Well, while I think that Australia are absolutely there for the taking,
the long term success many fans are beginning to expect could be further away
than you might imagine. The way I see
it, we are on a knife-edge. On one hand
we have a group of proven internationals who can compete with the best, along
with regions actually doing very well at unearthing and developing young talent
that should figure for the national team in the near future – Rhys Webb, Ashley
Beck, Liam Williams, to name a few that seem particularly promising. However,
the regions are struggling to keep hold of big names and promising youngsters
alike, after being throttled by salary caps and poor attendance at home matches.
So where next? Are we at the pinnacle of the success of this group of players
and the regional system they represent, or is this time of optimism in Welsh
rugby just getting started?
This success of Welsh rugby as a whole will be judged by most on
performance of the national team. At this point in time, I would like to think
that we are only a few small pieces away from clicking and becoming a real
force in world rugby, maybe even beating southern
hemisphere teams! We have a coaching set up under Gats that really seems to
work. We have an excellent pack, with
the tight five looking experienced and solid, while the loosies look dynamic
and function well as a unit. We are also
blessed with a back line composed of talented small people Rhys Priestland and
Leigh Halfpenny, plus some absolute freaks. And get this, we actually have
selection issues! For someone who got really interested in Welsh rugby sometime
around 2003-4, having genuine depth in key positions is the most exciting thing
at the moment. To leave Alun Wyn Jones,
James Hook and Matthew Rees on the bench shows the quality Wales have in
certain positions. It appears that the only positions we are thin on the ground
at are prop and centre (I think some people may disagree with the latter, but I
just think that centres should be able to pass, and think). Add in The Next Big
Thing Ashley Beck – the young Ospreys’ centre looks to be the real deal,
combining strength and an offloading game with great skills and awareness – and
develop a young prop like Rhodri Jones (or teach Ryan Bevington to scrimmage)
and we’re away!
The national team now has such a strong group of players that it should
do very well, even without many new players coming into the set up. However, despite
the 20 or so exceptional internationals playing in Wales right now, the regions
are still not mounting a serious challenge at the business end of the Heineken
cup, are suffering from dwindling crowd numbers and an exodus of talent they
invested in nurturing. So the problem is this: could we end up with a great national team but a poor domestic game, with
talented players establishing themselves in Wales before heading off for more
money and better rugby week in week out? Worryingly, I have yet to hear any
suggestions about what to about money in Welsh rugby that aren’t either
idealistic and unviable, or out of touch.
I am particularly referring to a strategy outlined by David Moffet,
involving central contracting, fairer divides in the regions and increased
governing responsibilities at regional level – these are great ideas and the
guy is talking sense, I just don’t think for a second it will ever happen.
Nonetheless, for this tour to have considered players based in France next
season Mike Philips, Aled Brew, Luke Charteris and co, it looks like in the
future there will be nothing but a sense of blind patriotism keeping players at
the regions. As Moffet put it they become
feeder clubs for the Aviva Premiership and Top 14. By and large, the attitude
of Welsh fans to the regions was put perfectly by the former WRU Chief: “They
[fans] are quite happy to support regionally produced players ... provided they
are in the red Welsh shirt”).
What the WRU should do about these financial problems and level of
support for regional teams is, frankly, beneath an over-enthusiastic fan like myself. We are at a cross-roads. We are either
satisfied with short term success and hope the domestic game sorts itself out,
or we commit to restructuring the regions and the WRU, in the hope that we can
build long term success – perhaps another Golden Age really is just around the
corner.
So I leave you with an upbeat prediction
for Saturday’s first test: Expect better conditions and fiery backlash from the
Aussies after their loss to Scotland, but I see revenge for the World Cup defeat
and the first southern hemisphere scalp of, hopefully, many – Wales by 6!
Team News:
Australia: 15 Adam
Ashley-Cooper, 14 Joe Tomane, 13 Rob Horne, 12 Pat McCabe, 11 Digby Ioane, 10
Berrick Barnes, 9 Will Genia, 8 Wycliff Palu , 7 David Pocock (c), 6 Scott
Higginbotham, 5 Nathan Sharpe, 4 Rob Simmons , 3 Sekope Kepu, 2 Tatafu
Polota-Nau, 1 Benn Robinson.
Replacements: 16 Stephen
Moore, 17 Ben Alexander, 18 Dave Dennis, 19 Michael Hooper, 20 Nic White, 21
Anthony Fainga'a, 22 Mike Harris.
Wales: 15 Leigh
Halfpenny, 14 Alex Cuthbert, 13 Jonathan Davies, 12 Scott Williams, 11 George
North, 10 Rhys Priestland, 9 Mike Phillips, 8 Toby Faletau, 7 Sam Warburton
(c), 6 Dan Lydiate, 5 Luke Charteris, 4 Bradley Davies, 3 Adam Jones, 2 Ken
Owens, 1 Gethin Jenkins.
Replacements: 16 Matthew
Rees, 17 Paul James, 18 Alun Wyn Jones, 19 Ryan Jones, 20 Lloyd Williams, 21
James Hook, 22 Ashley Beck.
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