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No Coach, No Strategy, No Future . . . And No-One At Home At The WRU

Wales are plunging down the world rankings:  Pic: Alamy

Wales are plunging down the world rankings: Pic: Alamy

A team without a coach, a game without a plan, a governing body with nothing to say . . . it can't get worse than this, can it? Actually, it can says Graham Thomas.

It’s now four days since Wales’ worst ever rugby result on their own land and still no-one from the Welsh Rugby Union has poked their head above the parapet.

Wise move, some might say – especially as those with itchy trigger fingers have had to content themselves with taking pot-shots across the Wild West terrain of social media.

But although silence from those in charge of the game might be pragmatic advice from their PR department  - sticking to the motto that if you’ve nothing to say,  then say nothing - that stance in itself underlines  how desperate are the state of things.

It’s a corporate response from an organisation which views Wales versus England as a corporate event, rather than a cultural touchstone.

There are, at present, five pressing issues on which the WRU has nothing to say.

They have no national coach.

They have no director of rugby.

They have no chief growth officer (the person who was going to fill the bread basket).

They have no strategy document.

They have no agreement with their regions.

In short, the Union have nothing to say because that is broadly what they have accomplished in recent months . . . nothing.

Some time ago, they decided to keep schtum because their recent attempts to point to half the job that had been completed, only served to highlight the rest which had not.

Last summer, the Union “unveiled” their “One Wales” strategy which was less of a plan and more of a wish list, a kind of guileless corporate letter to Father Christmas.

“Dear Santa, Please can you give me a world-leading rugby country when benchmarked against others? Thanks, WRU.”

It included bold declarations of ambition, but absolutely no detail about how they were going to get there.

READ MORE:  Another Day, Another New Depth Plunged By Wales As Matt Sherratt Vows To Deliver Home Truths To WRU

The reason for that was the detail had not been agreed with those who provide the players for the professional game – the four regions.

In the middle of the Six Nations – fearful that the result in Italy may be catastrophic, including for the position of their own coach, Warren Gatland – the WRU put out a statement late on the Friday afternoon, claiming an agreement had been reached with the regions.

Only it hadn’t been. It had no signatures and the document remains unsigned.

Not that Cardiff, the Ospreys, the Scarlets and the Dragons are at all above blame. They have willfully contributed to the current crisis - believing for the past 22 years that their role is simply to extend their arm with a begging bowl.

They are right to demand fair payments for nurturing and then handing over their players a dozen times a year, but they have responsibilities as well as rights.

What have they actually built in almost a quarter of a century? Where is their business resilience? If Wales went off the TV screens every autumn and winter - and the goose laid no golden egg – they would all go bankrupt within days.

Compared to clubs in England, their commercial operations are tiny, their income beyond payments from the WRU is miniscule, and their notion of growth is simply to tap more loans from a benefactor.

In that lack of acumen, they mirror the Union itself, who have digital perimeter advertising inside the Principality Stadium - a window to the world – but deals with Castle Bingo and a Welsh pie company.

They are all useless at making money and yet they are all fixated on it.

They should stop making poor commercial decisions and start making some good sporting ones.

Even in the gilded world of Premier League football, Manchester United are given the runaround by Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford, because those clubs are better run, not because they’re richer.

READ MORE: Simon Says . . . Easterby Insists Nobody From Crisis-Torn Wales Has Dialled 999

Money has only ever flowed into Welsh rugby on the back of playing success. Not the other way around.

Vodafone currently emblazon their name across the Wales shirt, but for how long? How many companies want to link themselves to a team that cannot win a game?

It says much about the lack of bold ambition, and the myopia when it comes to proper solutions, that the only idea bandied around after the England humiliation was to ditch one of the regions.

It was a knee-jerk response based upon the false logic that if the Dragons were binned, the little bit of extra cash, and a few ordinary players dispersed elsewhere, would suddenly result in a huge upturn? Really?

It ignores both current and past history.

Ireland have been successful heavyweights in world rugby with four well-funded teams, while Scotland are forever exposed as lightweights with just two.

And where is the evidence that closing down professional rugby in a heartland, disillusioning and betraying people who have gone through plenty of hard times, would not do more harm than good.

Are those Dragons fans going to suddenly support Cardiff? Or will they just give up on the sport altogether and find something else to do?

Tinkering with the numbers does not begin to grasp the extent of the crisis.

Unless more  youngsters play the game, unless the playing  structures, the pathways, the competitions and tournaments, the global recruitment, the stadium experience, the TV experience, the relationship with the game’s  fans, are all completely re-imagined from top to bottom, then this crisis will be just like all the others  - not yet at  rock bottom.


READ MORE: Harry's Heroes . . . Thomas Leads Wales To Epic U20 Win Over England To Deny Grand Slam

Because in professional sport, there is always further to fall, a deeper level into which you can descend.

Don’t waste a good crisis, urged former Wales captain Gwyn Jones after last Saturday night.

But maybe even this one will be ignored by the Welsh Rugby Union.

It’s possible they are already  thinking about the next one – losing  two Tests played in 80 degree heat against Japan this summer, perhaps, a team now just one place below Wales in the world rankings.

That really would be something to stay silent about.

 

 

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