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Wales Online
Wales Online
Sport
Matthew Southcombe

Wales rugby matchdays must be revolutionised, the WRU has fallen asleep at the wheel

On Saturday, Charl Schwartzel hit the jackpot when he won $4 million - the biggest individual prize in golf history - at the inaugural LIV Golf event in London.

How does that have any relevance to the Welsh Rugby Union's relationship with its fan base? Well, just indulge me.

The LIV Golf series - bankrolled by the Saudi Arabia Private Investment Fund - has sent shockwaves through the sport of professional golf and is now threatening the PGA Tour's monopoly over it. A number of the best players and biggest draws in the game have been lured by huge signing bonuses and their participation in the LIV Golf series has forced the PGA Tour to ban them in a bid to prevent further migration of its hottest talents.

Without getting into the source of the funding - and the very valid concerns over sportswashing - LIV Golf has put the PGA Tour in a right mess. It's become a disruptive force in the sport but the only reason it has sprung up is because the PGA Tour itself became averse to attempts to modernise, born out of a certain level of complacency. The PGA Tour is now on the back foot, losing some of its biggest assets and everyone is now wondering why they didn't act sooner.

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And so to Welsh rugby.

For years, perhaps since time began, the oval-shaped ball has ruled in Welsh sport. It has brought success, taken Wales to the world, built itself a cathedral that is revered all around the globe and captured the imagination of a country like nothing else.

All the while, Welsh football has been a poor relation. The team was unsuccessful, stadiums were not even half full - but the dark days are over. Gareth Bale and his mates are now qualifying for major tournaments, which is the first point, and on the back of that the Football Association of Wales has harnessed a fan movement that has created a match made in heaven. It is now fashionable to be a Welsh football supporter in ways that it never was before.

The WRU, like the PGA Tour, have been complacent and their relationship with their supporter base has stagnated while football fans have developed a deep connection with the 11 men on the pitch.

It's important to note that this is not another rugby v football debate. Frankly, that's a tired discussion and speaks to a regressive mentality that will only serve to hold Welsh sport back. This is about one organisation that has been proactive in generating a fan culture, that has no doubt driven the team to relatively dizzying heights in the last six years, bringing financial rewards for the FAW, and another that has rested on its laurels.

Let's get ticket prices out of the way first. It's a red herring. Tickets to watch the football are far cheaper than the rugby, but the FAW does not have the same financial responsibility to the game as the WRU does. Without the revenue generated from the handful of home games Wales play every year, rugby as a whole would be on its knees. The WRU does not have the luxury of being able to price its tickets as low as the FAW.

Another key point is that what works for the FAW, will not necessarily work for the WRU. But there are things that can be learned and the key is to listen.

In a recent interview with WalesOnline, Mark Evans, the FAW's Head of Football Operations, intimated that much of what has happened in Welsh football was started organically by the fans. All the FAW did was recognise what was happening and facilitate the growth of it.

"We’re not geniuses, we just recognise what the fans are looking for and provide it," he says. Take the explosion of Yma O Hyd in Welsh football circles recently. The song has been played at half time during matches for years and suddenly fans started singing along. So the FAW put Dafydd Iwan in front of them and boom.

Taking it a step further, before the recent World Cup play-off match against Ukraine, they went one step further and collaborated with Welsh drill artist Sage Todz to release 'O Hyd', a track that included a sample of Dafydd Iwan's classic and lead into raps in both English and Welsh. It was a modern celebration of the country's language and culture. A brave move, but one that paid off. It is hard to envisage the WRU taking such steps.

They noticed that the singing of the national anthem wasn't quite hitting the right notes with fans sometimes out of sync with the music. So they tried cutting the music and suddenly it sounded incredible.

The introduction of Zombie Nation to the pre-match playlist also came about by just observing. In 2014, Welsh fans went ballistic in Brussels, celebrating a vital 0-0 draw with Belgium on their way to Euro 2016 qualification. The song that was being played after the full-time whistle then was the famous banger Kernkraft 400. So when Belgium came to Cardiff months later, the FAW played the song before kick-off and the Cardiff City Stadium went nuts. The song remains on the pre-match playlist now and really builds an atmosphere.

A particularly passionate group of supporters began styling themselves 'The Red Wall'. Players began referencing it in interviews, the FAW began promoting their fans as such. It created a sense of identity and fed the notion that the fans had a part to play in the success of the team. It also turned the Canton Stand into a pen of frenzied, bucket hat-wearing Welsh football fanatics. And they turn up with a sense of duty, to sing their songs and roar their team over the line.

Not all things will crossover but the WRU should be trying to facilitate the rise of something similar, the engaging of a hardcore section of the fan base should be seen as a priority. In Glanmor's Gap, the Principality Stadium has a ready-made section that is primed for exactly this. The game's governing body could do worse than interact with supporters groups of the four regions to discuss how to make it work.

The WRU has not produced masterstrokes like the aforementioned FAW moves any time recently. In fact, they've barely made a stroke. The pre-match build-up is tiresome and has been the same for as long as anyone can remember, with the WRU seemingly so tangled up in protecting tradition that it does so at the expense of modernising.

This is not to say that the traditional presence of the choir and band should not be preserved in some way but all things need to evolve.

Another issue, which the WRU has taken steps to tackle, relates to alcohol. This is not really the WRU's fault but their matches are now simply precursors to a night out in the city centre for many. Anyone attending games will see swathes of men and women, arriving five or six drinks deep, stopping off at the rugby between the train station and the night club.

It's a tough one for the WRU to manage because the stadium is in a prime location to attract this sort of behaviour. But the lack of innovation elsewhere in its matchday experience does little to drive the narrative away from the arena being simply a giant pub, as it has been referred to in recent years.

There was the brief introduction of DJ Spoony before matches but it was clumsy, invited derision and went away as quickly as it arrived. Perhaps fingers were burned and now the WRU is too afraid to evolve its matchday offering, even with a more gentle touch.

The inaction from within the WRU gives off the impression of complacency. But can they afford to be? Six Nations games against France and Italy were recently played in front of thousands of empty seats, a situation which WRU CEO Steve Phillips admitted was disappointing.

This autumn's clash against the All Blacks will sell-out but the WRU will have to go some to get a full house for the out-of-window clash with Australia. The WRU's first port of call should be how they develop what they're offering and build from there.

Because there is a disruptive force in Welsh sport and the WRU needs to learn from it and act before it begins hitting their bottom line.

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