Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

The 'biggest worry' Bradley Davies has over strike threat in Wales

By PA
(Photo by David Ramos/World Rugby via Getty Images)

Wales international Bradley Davies believes player strike action would be the last option amid an ongoing contracts freeze in Welsh rugby. It is understood that a meeting will take place during the next week between Welsh Rugby Players’ Association officials and players. Players going on strike is thought to be one possibility and it comes as Wales continue preparations for their Guinness Six Nations clash with England in Cardiff on Saturday week.

ADVERTISEMENT

The situation has been magnified due to recruitment being on hold and next season’s playing budgets not yet being finalised for Wales’ four professional regions of Cardiff, Ospreys, Dragons and Scarlets.

A new financial agreement between the regions and the Welsh Rugby Union has still to be confirmed in writing, sparking concern that a sizeable number of players whose contracts expire at the end of this season will head away from Wales, with a huge sense of uncertainty currently engulfing them and their families.

Video Spacer

Video Spacer

Ospreys lock Davies, who won the last of his 66 Wales caps in 2019 and was part of three World Cup campaigns, said: “It [strike action] is obviously an option in any job, but none of the boys want that. They don’t want to strike. Boys want Welsh rugby to get better again. They want this to stop and for us to move forward.

“Boys playing international and regional rugby don’t know if they have got a job in four months, it is always going to be difficult.”

Related

Asked if he would go on strike, Davies added: “I wouldn’t want to but if that was the only thing that had to be done, then I guess I would have to. Let’s all get around a table, let’s speak, let’s make Welsh rugby good again. We are not far off it. If we had to strike and that was the decision everyone made, then fair enough. But it is the last, last option.

“It is easy for someone to say, ‘Don’t worry about it’, but you do worry about it. It’s your job. You have families, mortgages, the cost of living. People are earning big money in rugby, of course they are, the same in any sport. But the average wage in rugby, especially Welsh rugby, is nowhere near the other teams.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I hope it doesn’t deter people from playing rugby – that is my biggest worry. Why would you want to play in Welsh rugby at the moment? We are affecting our product by fighting this civil war or whatever it’s called. Boys accept pay cuts, boys know the money is going down, but that is not what they are fighting for. They are just fighting for a seat at the table to speak and get their voice across.”

Negotiations on the future of the professional game in Wales are handled by the professional rugby board, which comprises representatives from each of the regions, acting WRU chief executive Nigel Walker, WRU finance director Tim Moss and two independent members, including chair Malcolm Wall.

In the PRB’s latest statement issued just before the start of this season’s Six Nations, Wall said that negotiations were at an advanced stage with a verbal agreement reached and a heads of terms document signed on a new six-year deal for the professional game.

He added that signing the heads of terms agreement had enabled Wales’ professional sides to begin contract negotiations with players on a conditional basis, giving players details of their individual offers.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ospreys head coach Toby Booth has worked on both sides of the Severn Bridge, holding senior roles at London Irish and Bath before moving to Swansea in 2020. “It is not just players, there are staff involved in this as well,” Booth said. “Uncertainty provides so many distractions and so much anxiety that you wouldn’t be human if it didn’t affect you.

“If you don’t know what your budget status is or your contract status is, it’s very difficult to move forward as an organisation. At the moment, there is a lot of uncertainty kicking around. Agreements aren’t in place, contracts haven’t been agreed. We are at the business end of the season and there is work that needs to be done.

“There has to be greater joined-up thinking between all stakeholders and all parties. I include the players and coaches and regions in that. At some point, the definition of insanity has to mean surely we have got to a point where we have to realise what has gone on before hasn’t worked well enough and it is time to change. There are so many unknowns and different agendas, which makes it a brutal minefield to get through, for sure.”

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 14 minutes ago
How law changes are speeding up the game - but the scrum lags behind

Too much to deal with in one reply JW!

No problem, I hope it wasn't too hard a read and thanks for replying. As always, just throwing ideas out for there for others to contemplate.


Well fatigue was actually my first and main point! I just want others to come to that conclusion themselves rather than just feeding it to them lol


I can accept that South Africa have a ball in play stat that correlates with a lower fitness/higher strength team, but I don't necessarily buy the argument that one automatically leads to the other. I'd suspect their two stats (high restart numbers low BIPs) likely have separate causes.


Graham made a great point about crescendos. These are what people call momentum swings these days. The build up in fatigue is a momentum swing. The sweeping of the ball down the field in multiple phases is a momentum swing. What is important is that these are far too easily stopped by fake injuries or timely replacements, and that they can happen regularly enough that extending game time (through stopping the clock) becomes irrelevant. It has always been case that to create fatigue play needs to be continuous. What matters is the Work to Rest ratio exceeding 70 secs and still being consistent at the ends of games.


Qualities in bench changes have a different effect, but as their use has become quite adept over time, not so insignificant changes that they should be ignored, I agree. The main problem however is that teams can't dictate the speed of the game, as in, any team can dictate how slow it becomes if they really want to, but the team in possession (they should even have some capability to keep the pace up when not in possession) are too easily foiled when the want to play with a high tempo.

152 Go to comments
J
JW 1 hour ago
How law changes are speeding up the game - but the scrum lags behind

The essence of rugby a fair physical competition for the ball?

No, that's describing League. Rugby is a beautiful game about executing scoring maneuvers. You should take up league, right up your ally as a physical contest imo.

If that is so using the scrum as just a reset takes out the competitiveness

If we forget (or even use to help understand) your first question, I still don't understand where you're going/what you're thinking.


What do you mean by just a reset? Like league where the ball is rolled/placed at the 8s feet to play with? I don't agree with any of those crazy suggestions here (even as a reward to the team that wins the scrum, I'm not even sure it would be a reward), no ones talking about depowering the scrum. At least not in this article/instance.

If there is no penalty for being beaten in the scrum we might as well just restart with a tap

To who? The team that was previously in possession? A scrum is a means of contesting for possession after play stops in open field (as apposed to when the ball goes dead, where it's a lineout). Are you proposing that core basis of the game is removed? I think it would make a much better game to just remove the knock on, as someone has already said, scrums resulting in a penalty as punishment for knocking the ball on is ridiculous. If you want to turnover the ball when someone looses it, you simply have to regather it before they do. That's how ever other game I can think of other than League works. So just get rid of the problem at the roots, it would be a much better "drastic" change than removing the contest from restarts.

In the lineout ruck and maul successful competition gets rewarded and illegal competition gets penalised no one is arguing about that. So is the scrum different?

No one is arguing that removal from scrums either. It is the plethora of nothing offences, the judgmental "technical" decisions by a referee, that are in the middle that are being targeted. Of course this is not a unique problem to scrums, lineouts will result in penalties simply from a contact of arms by jumpers, or rucks whenever a play hangs an arm over someones shoulder when cleaning them out. This article is about tackling the 'major' offences hindering the quality of the game.


But other than these questions, if you want to know my main opinions in my post you will see I agree that the ball should need (always and in every type of circumstance) to be played if it is available at scrum time.


Otherwise the TLDR of all my comments (even thoughts in general) on this particular question is that I agree advantage should be had in instances were the team with the ball 'won' the 'advantage' and where some sort of advantage was 'taken' away. In this respect the scrum had to be rolling forward to win an advantage. But I'm flexible in that if it speeds up the game to award a penatly, that's great, but if they also stop the clock for scrums, I'm happy with way instead. That is very few instances by the way, the majority of the time the ball is able to be played however.


The big question I have asked Bull about is what advantage or opportunity was taken away from a strong scrumming team when opposition causes the scrum to collapse? What sort of advantage was taken away that they need to be a penalty reward, that would seem to be way over the top for most offences to me.


So on that point, I'll like your perspective on a couple of things. How do you think lineouts compare to scrums? Do they offer you enough reward for dominance, and do you think all such meaningless offences should be lessoned (slips or pops while going backwards, contact with the jumper, closing the game, good cleanouts to some fool whos ducked his head in a ruck etc)?

152 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Rob Kearney: 'It's a good narrative. It works. Everybody likes it' Exclusive RugbyPass interview: Rob Kearney, ex-Ireland and Leinster
Search