Welsh rugby is broken and there doesn’t seem to be a plan to fix it.
The plight of the national side this season, coupled with the regions’ inability to compete in the United Rugby Championship, has left the game in Wales at a crossroads. Sources at all levels have publicly, and privately, indicated that there appears to be little direction coming from those running the sport. The Welsh Rugby Union’s decision to remain silent amid the chaos has done little to dispel the concerns.
On the field, Wales and the regions are struggling, the Wales under-20s side have not been in the Six Nations running for years and there are genuine fears over the quality of players that are coming through a development system that many feel is inferior to its competitors.
READ MORE: We need to hear from the WRU, there are many questions that need answering
As always, there are money problems in the professional game and the pro teams are now paying off a loan that was taken out to cover payments to them from the WRU, which will be with them for the next 20 years.
So that’s the hole we find ourselves in, now how do we get out? WalesOnline offers up some solutions with the game on the verge of a full blown crisis.
WE NEED A PLAN
It sounds obvious but a strategic plan – a minimum of three years and preferably more – needs to be drawn up. The closest we’ve had to this is the WRU giving the four pro teams one year’s advanced notice of their level of funding when, in 2021, they confirmed the payment would be £23.5m for the 2022/23 season. However, that figure isn’t really worth the paper it’s written on because it is ‘indicative only and based on a number of current assumptions which may vary’. As yet, Directors of Rugby are still insisting that they do not know their actual budgets for next season and we’re well into April.
Under these conditions, you cannot plan a squad, it is difficult to allocate spend to the improvement of training facilities and stadiums, and it is almost impossible to attract private investment under these conditions. It is difficult to attract investment in any case, but private equity companies like CVC are putting money into the game so there is some level of interest there to be exploited, if you have the right model.
A strategic plan would put the onus on the Boards of the pro teams to edge themselves closer to self-sufficiency, rather than depending on the payments from the WRU. The only reason to not want that is because it could result in the game’s governing body losing a degree of control.
But some of the most successful rugby nations in the world have an aligned plan for the domestic sides and the national teams that works like a well-oiled machine. In Wales, it feels like we’ve got the exhaust where the engine should be and a hand brake where the accelerator usually resides. Living from one year to the next does not facilitate growth.
THE TAIL WAGS THE DOG
It feels like this point has been driven home and screamed until we’re all blue in the face but it bears repeating if we’re talking about a plan to save Welsh rugby, albeit nothing may change here. It is bordering on archaic that the pro game, which generates almost all of the revenue, is governed by the 300-plus community clubs.
They elect the chairman of the WRU, hold the majority of seats on the board, which elects the CEO and ultimately decides how much money to spend and where to spend it. At this point, it’s worth mentioning that the regions ended up with a loan during the pandemic while the community game’s £11.8 million funding was delivered. It also needs to be pointed out that the WRU does have a responsibility to the game in Wales which extends far beyond the professional arena. And this is not a dig at the community game or to belittle its importance, but it is simply an illustration of why the running of the game should be split in my opinion.
Now this is very easy to say and much more difficult when put into practice. Gareth Davies tried to make strides towards making this a reality – “With all respect, a £100m business can’t be run by well-meaning local WRU Council members,” he is on record as saying – but ended up being voted out of his position as chairman by the clubs and replaced by Rob Butcher who, rightly or wrongly, is perceived as a grassroots man. To reach a place where the pro game is no longer at the mercy of the club game in Wales, turkeys would have to vote for Christmas and there is no indication that the clubs are willing to give up their power.
It’s also relevant because it sits above the Professional Rugby Board in the unwieldy structure of the WRU. It is not a stretch to suggest that this is why the PRB includes extremely savvy and successful business people who often call for change but are unable to instigate it. Splitting the governance of the game would make the PRB more impactful and dynamic, getting to that point, though is not easy.
To go a step further, the constitution of the WRU needs to be modernised and altered to give the pro game the freedom it needs in order to make substantial moves. At the moment, any person who tries to push for change could be stymied by the threat of EGMs – it only takes 10 percent of clubs to call one – and would likely soon find themselves out of a job.
However, any changes to that would need the approval of the clubs, which means it is also extremely unlikely to happen unless self-interest can be put to one side. The funding of the community game, which is clearly an important part of the bigger picture, is ringfenced and that was done to smooth over previous governance changes. Could similar compromises be reached to take things on even further?
REGIONS REVAMPED, THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
Welsh rugby may be hamstrung by its governance structure but there are moves that can be made even within it. But, I’m sorry to say, this is where things get uncomfortable for the regions. There is a sense throughout the game that we neither have the money or saturation of talent to sustain four professional teams below the national side. You only need to look at the results to see evidence of that.
Sources have indicated that the payments to the regions are around £1.5 million short of what they feel they need to be competitive. So how do we get there? The quickest way is a reduction to three teams and divide that team’s payment up among the other three. However, that might be seen as deeply unpalatable. No team is going to fall on their sword and the WRU probably feel they can’t force that decision.
So if that’s not on the table, what next? Naturally discussions then have to turn to the 2+2 funding model, which involves two fully-financed pro teams that are primed to compete on all fronts, and two teams that effectively become breeding grounds for talent. But it doesn’t have to last for good.
The theory is that Team A gets the appropriate level of funding and when they achieve success, some of the revenue attached to it trickles down to Team B. In some ways, all boats rise. Then, when Team A is regularly competitive, the theory is that they will have a quality playing squad, a larger fan base, attract more private investment and will then require smaller payments from the WRU, putting less of a financial strain on the system, freeing up cash to be distributed to the other teams which will bring them back up.
This opens up a world of possibilities. It’s believed the WRU had been previously prepared to go down this route but the pro teams could not agree which teams would receive less of the funding, which doesn’t really come as much of a surprise.
In theory, this all sounds fantastic. But it must also be noted that competition and broadcast revenue would certainly be reduced if we went down to two or three teams. And there would likely be major debate if the funding model was altered. Welsh rugby would have to be mindful of that and be sure that the numbers make sense. But as the former finance director, making the numbers work should be current CEO Steve Phillips' forte.
We would also have to give consideration to what happens to the two teams on reduced funding while we wait for the two fully-financed teams to bring success. Could they survive? How many fans would walk away from a team that is not able to be competitive? Would it be any worse than it is now?
One thing we do know is that all the pro teams need more money and it cannot be a case of knocking on the WRU’s door every few years asking for a couple of million. The Union has a responsibility to the wider game, as we’ve seen with the recent investment in the women’s game, and that needs to be acknowledged. There’s only so much money to go around, therefore we have to look at how it is distributed.
The grassroots clubs would be unlikely to meddle in this sort of decision as it doesn’t really affect them but it’s also unlikely that this is going to be agreed upon by the pro teams, even if other workable solutions are hard to come by. In the short term, the Union could give the pro teams the cash they need this summer but attach terms and objectives, then use it as a vehicle to make the decision later down the line based on performances.
In truth, this would be kicking the can down the road and delaying a decision that really needs to be made now - but it might be the only way to get it done.
REDUCE THE WASTE AND FIX THE PATHWAY
The solutions to the problems at the moment cannot simply be about more cash being ploughed into the system. The pro teams have to look at themselves in the mirror in terms of how they operate and how much money is being wasted in Welsh rugby currently. This takes on a number of forms.
Players deserve to be rewarded for what they put their bodies through but salaries have ballooned in recent years, particularly for squad players who fall outside the category of young talent or top class international. As one insider put it ‘the agents have had a field day’ and pro teams are paying exorbitant salaries for players that barely see any URC action. Money has not always been spent wisely.
The pro teams have a responsibility to get their spending under control in this regard or more money being pumped into the system will simply result in salaries continuing to inflate, when really the investment needs to be in their academy facilities and their pathways.
Which brings us neatly back to the 2+2 model. If you want to be radical, you could look at the option of merging the academies of two pro teams based on geographical location, so we’re left with two academies in Wales - East and West - rather than four. Pooling resources in this way would mean that teams can provide a better service to young players who have a genuine chance of making it as a professional, instead of spending time and resource on players who, in reality, are never going to make it simply because it feels like the right thing to do.
This would raise the threshold of how good a player needs to be in order to make it into an academy and then that individual’s development will be enhanced by the more streamlined approach. Finally, this would result in better players emerging from the academies, something that was highlighted to Wales Online as an issue, with the Wales under-20s squad having regressed in recent years.
The two Welsh academies would need to find fixtures against England and Irish academies – although the latter would increase spend due to travel. But getting hold of those fixtures does not appear a stretch.
Teams could keep their individual age-grade systems to identify talent.
UTILISE THE PREMIERSHIP
A source in the Welsh Premiership recently told Wales Online: “We just want a plan.”
Any strategic plan for the pro game in Wales needs to include the Premiership. Every successful rugby system has a thriving tier under the pro level. The attempt to use ‘A’ teams as Welsh rugby’s ‘third tier’ has never really left the ground and the Premiership was pushed towards the community game as a result. The semi-pro level could have an important role in supporting the pro level, particularly when it comes to issues around player development, but changes would be required.
There would need to be a reduction of teams from 12 likely down to eight, in order to improve the quality of the league. It then becomes a viable vehicle to develop talent because academies would be farming out players to fewer teams. This step would strengthen the Premiership and give it a key role in the pathway to professional rugby.
And it’s not just young talent. Professional players who are not being selected to play for the pro team should then be sent straight to the Premiership for game time instead of sitting in the stands. We’ve slowly seen moves back towards this way of doing things in some cases but the structure needs to be more joined up and the policy adopted across the board.
It's believed that the WRU know the Premiership has too many teams but convincing clubs that they should lose their spot for the betterment of the game as a whole is not easy. It is extremely difficult to make these sorts of changes in the current system and they would likely have to take place over a number of seasons, rather than slashing four teams in one swoop.
For it to have any chance there would almost certainly need to be some form of promotion and relegation, giving clubs an opportunity to get back into the Premiership if they lost out. That would run the risk of losing the uniformity of having two clubs per region in the Premiership, but it would likely have to do.
THE WALES BOSS
The reason this debate is raging so furiously at the moment is because Wales are no longer papering over the cracks with success at Test level. Even if the rest of the game was in rude health, a defeat to Italy would have sparked a full scale inquiry. But their defeat, as some have hinted at previously, has shone a light on the failings of the game in Wales as a whole.
It feels like a very long time since Alun Wyn Jones lifted the 2021 Six Nations trophy aloft and there are very fair questions being asked of Wayne Pivac and his regime. Wales never looked like producing the level of performances required to contend in the Six Nations this year, save for a creditable performance against France that ultimately ended in defeat.
Pivac has not had a great season, though there is a win over Australia to applaud, and he now faces a daunting three-Test tour of South Africa with a squad that hasn’t really transitioned at anywhere near the pace he might have expected it to, with the World Cup appearing on the horizon.
Sacking Pivac now would be a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction to a bad year in which he had to make do without a handful of key players. But if bad things get worse this summer, he will find himself under real pressure, with the WRU placed in a very sticky situation. Sending the coach packing just over a year before a World Cup doesn’t exactly scream stability. We're not at that point yet and those at the top of the WRU will hope to see improvements in South Africa.
CHANGE HAS TO COME
Some of the suggestions in this article will be met with strong opposition and any move the WRU decides to make will also be met with similar responses. Whatever the emotions of the situation, the chance of clubs voting to make constitutional changes at the WRU is extremely slim, so until that happens then there are only certain moves that can be made.
The model used to fund the pro game would likely be something that can be changed far quicker. All that would require is for the four regions to actually agree on it. Easier said than done, yes, but there has to be a recognition that the status quo cannot go on.
I’ve often opposed the idea of reducing teams or adjusting the funding model because it has felt like an admission that Welsh rugby is failing. Unfortunately, the results are beginning to speak for themselves at all levels and maybe it is time we accept things are failing and a radical rethink is required.
Welsh rugby is on the verge of slipping back into the doldrums. Doing nothing is not really an option.
