LONG READ How to solve a problem like Welsh rugby

Midway through the second half of Wales’s Principality Stadium rout by England, Jonathan Davies invited his fellow BBC co-commentator Danny Care to say whether he felt the visitors should kick to the corner from a penalty.

The Englishman started to agree, saying, “yeah, for the throw type stuff”, but his heart wasn’t truly in it. Instead, Care, who had played in England’s 30-3 hiding by Wales in Cardiff 2013, had something more important to say, with the hosts having already shipped 40 points as the game entered the final quarter.

“I say this as an Englishman: I don’t want to see a scoreline like this, Jiff,” he said, more than a bit plaintively. “I want to see a really competitive Wales. I’ve never come to this stadium and had a result like this. I’ve never seen a result like this. I’ve had some horrible moments here.

“This should be one of England’s greatest, and it is, but it almost doesn’t feel quite right because I don’t think Wales are where everybody wants them to be.”

Fair play. Care could have simply donned his size 9s and aimed one of them in Wales’s nether regions when they were down. At the very least he could have been forgiven a spot of good-natured neighbourly banter, but, evidently for him, the situation had gone beyond fun and games.

Wales’s weakness had diluted the pleasure he took from England’s 10-try success, and his reaction told a story, and not a happy one from a Welsh perspective.

Put simply, a team are in deep trouble when a 100-cap player from their oldest rivals starts to feel sorry for them.

Seventeen Test defeats in a row, 11 games without a Six Nations win, no victory in a home international  since August 2023, a 68-14 hammering in Cardiff at the hands of England: stack those horrors high for Welsh rugby, with the final indignity on that list played out to the strains of Swing Low Sweet Chariot echoing around the Principality Stadium, drowning out the hymns and arias that usually head the playlist.

Bread of heaven? It didn’t really happen. Last Saturday, England powered the van carrying the day’s celestial delivery clean off the road.

And to think Warren Gatland had warned the doubters ahead of the Six Nations to write Wales off ‘at your peril’. Let’s agree some quotes age better than others. No one was truly in peril from Wales during the tournament. Worryingly, too, there is no guarantee the tough times are over. This summer, Japan’s players will be tucking napkins under their chins and positively salivating at the prospect of getting stuck into the Wales side who’ll be touring there.

Post-Saturday’s on-pitch events, it would have been good if someone from the Welsh Rugby Union had fronted up and explained what steps were being taken to effect a proper repair job. But no one did, and the silence was deafening. As Welsh supporters shuffled off into the Cardiff night, Welsh rugby seemed a world of questions with all too few answers, from officialdom at least.

Four days on, an eight-year-old boy, who had developed an interest in the oval-ball game after the last World Cup, said to this writer: “I haven’t seen Wales win at rugby.” Sad, ever so sad, but some of us of far more advanced years are forgetting what the experience is like, too.

When will it all end?

Perhaps when Welsh rugby gets it act together.

But it could take some time, and much needs to be looked at.

The players

The players Wales used during the Six Nations gave their all, but results will tell you it just wasn’t enough. If a 43-0 defeat by France and the flogging by England were horrendous lows, the punchless defeat to Italy in the rain and the no-show for 50 minutes against Scotland weren’t exactly occasions to celebrate, either.

There were some who came out of the shambles with their reputations largely intact, among them Jac Morgan and Taulupe Faletau, both of whom performed exceptionally before the England game.

Blair Murray? A shade vertically challenged for a full-back and he probably needs to spend an extra hour or two in tackle school, but, boy, can he run. His super-strength involves finding space where there isn’t any, and, with a bit more luck, he could have finished the championship with a sackful of tries. Instead, he bagged just one. Still, overall, he finished in credit.

Welsh minuses could weigh a ship down, with half-back, the front five and the three-quarter line all needing to significantly improve. Up front, Wales lack power. Murray aside, the backs are short of pace compared to what’s on offer elsewhere. If the road to success is always under construction, Wales have a lot of work to do.

Disband a region?

“Four regions don’t work. We haven’t got enough players,” offered Sam Warburton as the inquest into Saturday’s hiding started. Plenty of others agree. Doing away with a region, they argue, would concentrate money and talent, lift standards and, potentially, make the surviving sides more attractive to play for.

But who’s up for falling on their sword?

Don’t all rush at once.

Anyway, the Welsh Rugby Union’s most recent pronouncement on the matter was that they were fully committed to finding agreement with all four regions.

Since then, the hopeless Six Nations misfire has underlined how serious problems are in the Welsh game, if anyone had been in any doubt in the first place. Does that change anything? It’s not absolutely clear it will.

The union’s plan is for budgets at the pro teams to rise from £5.1 million next term to £6.8 million by 2029, with interim director of rugby Huw Bevan saying the basis of the strategy is to produce four successful regions and a successful national side.

Negotiations over a new funding agreement are said to be far advanced, albeit two regions are reportedly yet to commit to the package on the table.

All should be revealed sooner rather than later, with the hope being that the calamity of the past six or seven weeks will focus minds.

Some might feel minds should have been focused a long time ago.

Firm up the development pathway  

“Players have been coming through in Wales despite our system, not because of it,” according to a Welsh rugby insider who has worked in the Welsh game at pretty much every level.  “We had a system once that was genuinely elite, with a national academy that young players aspired to be part of, but it was wound up and things haven’t been the same since.”

The evidence supports that view. Rewind a decade and a half ago, and the likes of Leigh Halfpenny, Dan Biggar and Jonathan ‘Fox’ Davies were benefiting from the help the national academy contributed to their development. But the structure was done away with in the middle of the last decade, with the regions taking responsibility for shining up next-generation players, helped by financial support from the WRU. But funding levels have been at a questionable level throughout Welsh rugby ever since and the conveyor belt of talent hasn’t been working as well as it used to.

“It’s been poor, to be honest,” continued the insider, who didn’t want to be named. “In 2016, Wales beat a France side at U20 level which included Antoine Dupont, Peato Mauvaka and Anthony Jelonch, with Damian Penaud on the bench. But we didn’t kick on after it.

“We paid the price for disbanding our national academy. France were doing things differently, sending their best youngsters to the national centre at Marcoussis, where they studied in the mornings and did rugby and physical training in the afternoons, before being released back to clubs at weekends.

“It exposed those players to the best coaching in France and got them together under the same roof. When they entered competitions, they were basically a club team.

“Our old system had a grade above the regional development process that was genuinely elite and youngsters had to work hard to be in it.

“If we are going to get anywhere again, we need to do what we were doing right a decade or so ago and make sure it is properly funded.”

In fairness, work is being done to improve matters, not least in the shape of the WRU’s Wales Pathway Players programme, with a watchlist being drawn up of 60 players between the ages of 15 and 24 who have been identified as potential bright lights of tomorrow. Those involved will receive what the union might style as cutting-edge support, coaching and mentoring, aimed at properly tapping potential.

But development takes time. A quick fix it isn’t.

Making the right appointments

Started the day after Warren Gatland moved on, a WhatsApp thread  on who might be the next Wales head coach didn’t open auspiciously, with the first contributor asking: “Who would want it?”

His question harked back to the mid-1990s when so many people ruled themselves out of the running to succeed Alec Evans in the hot seat that the South Wales Echo ran a back-page story beneath the headline ‘The job that no-one wants’.

But someone will always want a Test rugby coaching position. Coaches see the international arena as the pinnacle of their sport and most have the ambition to work in it, to test themselves.

There is also the point that Wales’s current disarray might lead some to arrive at the same conclusion as the singer Yazz back in the day, that the only way is up. Mind you, with South Africa, New Zealand and Argentina among opponents lined up for the coming autumn, we can’t be certain cloud nine will be reached any time soon.

Still, those being mentioned as potential permanent head-coach successors to Gatland include Pat Lam, Michael Cheika, Simon Easterby, Franco Smith and Stuart Lancaster, with Lam being installed as new favourite by one bookmaker on Wednesday, the day after a rival firm had made Smith their fancied choice. A few days earlier, Cheika was the hot tip, shortly after Simon Easterby relinquished that billing. Uncertainty rules, then, but all of the above are decent candidates.

The director of rugby position has had more names linked to it than some small armies have men, with Scott Johnson the latest in the frame, alongside Huw Evans, Kingsley Jones, Lancaster and many others, possibly including Uncle Tom Cobley. But the union need to get the appointment right because the chap who lands it will oversee whatever structural changes are on the agenda in Welsh rugby, as well as being the new head coach’s boss. It’s an important gig.

Green shoots of recovery?

There were not too many of these on display in Cardiff last Saturday but the previous evening was a different story, with Wales beating England in the U20 Six Nations. Those catching the eye over the tournament included flanker Harry Beddall, hooker Harry Thomas, prop Sam Scott, centre Steff Emanuel and back three flyer Tom Bowen.

Already playing regional rugby, Morgan Morse is a youngster who looks destined for big things, with his unyielding attitude and ability to change games: barely a match goes by without the Ospreys tyro making a significant impression. Macs Page at the Scarlets is an exciting back, while the Dragons’ Huw Anderson is a quick and elusive No. 15.

All hope hasn’t been extinguished, then, and Wales do have young players returning from injury in the shape of Mason Grady, Archie Griffin and Ben Carter, while Joe Hawkins is back in Welsh rugby next term. Can the talent of Mackenzie Martin and Carwyn Tuipulotu yet be fully tapped? It would be a plus if it could.

Just as important is that Wales keeps within its selection orbit those Welsh youngsters who opt to play in England, with the best two white-shirted players last Friday, Kepu Tuipulotu and Kane James, both hailing from the western side of the River Severn.

You do wonder at the thought processes every now and then.

Certainly, James, in particular, might be tempted to have a long, hard think about his future, with England’s back-row options including Ben Earl, Tom Curry, Ben Curry, Chandler Cunningham-South, Sam Underhill, Tom Willis, Henry Pollock, Alex Dombrandt, Ollie Chessum, Nick Isiekwe and Ted Hill. Oh, and Jack Willis is English too – of course he is.

Ultimately, though, the call is his to make. With or without him, Wales have to improve.

The WRU have set a goal of Wales returning to the top five in the world by 2029. Should the new coach help take them there, he’ll deserve more than a set of gates named after him.

But, right now, such a possibility seems a distant prospect. Welsh rugby could take a long time to fix.