By Zippy
July 10 2004

Taken from this months rugby world, an article from the ever controversial Stephen Jones. This months focuses on the demise of the Warriors and his take on why. Well worth a read.

Death In The Valleys

 

Stephen Jones

 

The WRU is to blame for the unforgivable demise of the Celtic Warriors

 

Death by degrees. There is no longer any top rugby, nor any signs of the professional game, in the Welsh Valleys.

 

It was bad enough when WRU chief exec David Moffett crudely carved up the country into 5 random chunks (and the West Walian chunk, bizarrely, includes north Wales too. Work that one out in these days of community rugby!). But we did not know that he would soon crumble one of those chunks into dust.

 

The irony would be amusing, if it did not crush the aspirations of a large number of dedicated players, coaches and back up staff of that murdered entity called the Celtic Warriors. But there was Moffett complaining the crowds were low, that commercially did not make sense. Where has he been?

 

We warned him of the dangers of abandoning the glorious brand names of Welsh rugby in favour of trumped-up-conglomerates. We warned that he was confusing parochialism with community, and told him his new creations would struggle at the box office and in the market place. The commercial failing of the Warriors is the fault of no one but Moffett, the WRU and their crude allied bunglers.

 

So the Warriors only averaged around 4,000 followers? The original Pontypridd, a fine brand name was destroyed.

 

Pontypridd, a wonderful, bloody-minded and driven club, drew 8,000 and more at their best, with such a fervency of support that to play there could seem like a near death experience. If Pontypridd had been left alone and with proper back up, they would still be giving the Valleys a focus of excellence and still be giving local lads with a gift for rugby somewhere to aspire to. Now the demise of Ponty and the Warriors means there is a large segment of young Welshman that are denied the right to earn their living through the one thing in their lives that they do best.

 

What Moffett and the supporters of his attempts to import an alien culture never realise (Because newcomers lack historical perspective) is that no one ever gave a chance to properly funded, properly encouraged pro club structure. In those very years when English rugby was establishing its new, powerful structure, what was happening in Wales? Committed and generous benefactors were arriving, but were totally, disgracefully ignored, even reviled. That remains the biggest disgrace of all. Any proper governing body would have been knocking on their doors – daily. The WRU was jealous of them, ignored them.

 

Second the WRU was prostrate at the feet of all the tiny and jealous clubs and secretaries who wanted the rotten status quo preserved and who were terrified by pro rugby, elitism and progress. It is truly amazing that some of the benefactors are still around. Without them, Wales would have no pro rugby whatsoever, and in the Celtic League and Heineken Cup semi-pro Welsh outfits would be up against gleaming teams with budgets running into millions.

 

Naturally the whole game is gravitating back towards the great clubs, Cardiff and Llanelli, still stand alone and on the law of averages, Cardiff must sort themselves out one day soon. Mustn’t they?

The name Newport now appears alongside Gwent Dragons. Swansea’s move to the Morfa stadium will re-establish that name too. All this is exactly how it should be. The process will continue and it must be completed.

 

NGD had a valiant 1^st season they performed well in the Celtic League, albeit whilst the Irish fielded mainly 2^nd string teams. But in terms of technical prowess nor gate taking capacity were the Dragons in the same league as the original Newport club. Newport sold there ground out 6 times in the last season of their true pro existence and the new entity never came remotely near to selling out Rodney Parade, not once,

 

Why? Because the sense of belonging, the local sense of ownership of the club, is lost when it represents something too amorphorous.

 

But what a crying shame that, because of the WRU’s scandalous financial bungling and lack of vision, we are not entering the new season with Cardiff, Newport, Swansea and Llanelli lining up alongside Pontypridd to give Wales 5 pro clubs which should be an absolute minimum; that North Wales does not have its own pro club playing in the 1^st division, and London Welsh their own pro club tapping into the riches in England with a place in the Zurich Premiership.

 

I met some of the employees of the Celtic Warriors when their future was in serious doubt. They looked ashen and betrayed. They had done there level best. They had proven what Warriors they were when winning away at Wasps – shocking a well-funded team packed with big-name internationals. They showed some of the old, innate Welsh Valley cunning and Welsh Valley skills. They gave it their best shot, fighting the weakness of the very concept into which they were trying to breathe life.

 

There is a further issue at stake here, of course. Yes, domestic rugby should be independent of the national union in everything but central financing, but the further danger lies in the belief that concentrating the top players of Welsh rugby into 4 clubs is good for the national set up. It is not. Wales will now have 4 players in every position playing pro rugby every week. So Wales selection comes down to a choice between them (admittedly there are a few playing abroad, and good luck to them. The more that play in a serious structure outside Wales the better.)

 

But in any group of four, at least one will palpably not be of international class, one because he is an overseas player (Overseas glamour is essential to oil turnstiles).

 

Who knows, perhaps another of the four may be too old for test rugby. The fact is Wales will be choosing from a pitifully small group of players. Given an injury in a particular position, someone could be chosen for Wales simply because he is the only fit, qualified man of reasonable standard available.

 

People harp on about the structure in Ireland. What has the structure ever done for rugby there? Ireland have won one grand slam, so long ago that only OAPs will remember it – 1948, in case younger readers need reminding. And despite a whole lot of fuss, they haven’t won the European Cup in a season when all the teams entered. There pool of talent is too tiny.

 

What Welsh rugby needs is space to breathe and teams to aspire too – especially since the “A” team has been disbanded, at the very point in its history when it would have proved most critical. It is a crying shame there are no positions for promising young players, to claim. Innate rugby is no longer on the agenda in Wales. Nor is skill, nor rugby in the Valleys. There is hardly anywhere left for young men to play, hardly anywhere for Welsh people to watch the game.

 

Saturday has become the desert day. And Wales has become, for most of its land area, the desert country.