Welsh rugby's current predicament has been well-documented in recent months, with the struggles of the four pro teams and Wayne Pivac's national side making concerning headlines.
In a new development, former chair of the Professional Rugby Board Amanda Blanc has revealed she quit her role because she felt she wasn't being listened to in the corridors of power. Blanc, and almost everyone else involved at the top of the game, has called for change to the way the game is governed in this country.
At the heart of all this, of course, should be the feelings of the fans, who have endured years of disappointment and watching their teams fall short.
So WalesOnline got them together, asking representatives of the four regional supporters' groups to share their views on the game at this difficult time. This is how the conversation unfolded:
What is your biggest concern regarding the game in Wales at the moment?
Barrie Jones (Crys16): We all know each other via the Joint Supporters Group Cymru, we operate as a group. You might be aware of a tweet we put out recently regarding our disappointment at the WRU’s failure to meet with us. That’s our main concern at the moment and everything else moves around that.
We as an organisation have been meeting with them on a regular basis, putting the views of our membership forward – most of which are season ticket holders, the hardcore support of the pro game. It was meant to be in December, they postponed it and they’ve basically shut us off.
When we have met Steve Phillips (WRU CEO) and Mark Killingley (WRU head of digital and communications) they have been very open. They say they are very supportive but at the moment we don’t see that translated into action.
Huw Jones (CF10): There are three issues and they probably stem from Barrie’s simple point about communication. Firstly, I think all of us would acknowledge that the board of the WRU is not fit for purpose. They’ve got a group of individuals who are managing a £90million organisation, who have insufficient experience to do that.
Then there is a real lack of appreciation that the regions and the WRU are effectively one body. They may be four separate companies – with the Dragons owned by the WRU – but effectively they are one economic entity because they rely so much on each other. One cannot function without the other’s players, the other cannot function without the international money that comes to it.
In a partnership like that, you would expect to have a level of respect but it’s still hierarchical. The governance of the WRU, with the PRB (Professional Rugby Board) being a subsidiary, puts that into some context.
The final issue is regarding funding. At one point it was supposed to be up to £26million, last year it was announced it would be £23million and £23.5million for next year. Now it’s going down even further.
That level of funding is devastating. We’ve seen players losing contracts and a reduction of squads – and some of that I acknowledge was necessary – but it’s devastating.
Dan Hallett (Dragons Supporters Club): It’s not just the bottom line figures, it’s also about forward planning. In the last two seasons, the Dragons have let players go that they really wanted to keep. Brok Harris and Adam Warren come to mind. The reason for that is that they still didn’t have their budget for the following season.
For example, the Irish provinces knew their budgets for the season over a year ago. How can any business forward plan when they don’t know what kind of income stream they're going to have for the next 12 months? It should be for the next three, four or five years, or at least a solid projection of what they’re expecting.
That is part of the reason why there has been a bit of delay – shall we say – for the Dragons to go into private ownership. I suspect that even if the figures weren’t great David Buttress (Dragons chairman) would have taken it in beforehand. But when he has no figures at all, then nobody in their right mind would take it into private ownership.
Grant Berni (Ospreys Supporters Club): I’m hearing stories that Irish rugby are over-investing in the next couple of seasons. Get the pro game right and that’s the engine that drives everything else. Get success on the pitch and that brings supporters, brings sponsorship and things should snowball. We seem to be doing the exact opposite at the moment in terms of funding. It feels like they haven’t got faith that they can deliver on the pitch.
Huw Jones (CF10): There is a complete lack of transparency about the situation and there’s no reason for it. It’s almost secrecy. If we were talking about PLCs, where rumours affect the share price then you can understand. But they’re all private businesses, nobody is affected by what is made public, so they should be controlling that level of transparency. The classic example is we’ve got this £51million in CVC money – anybody got any idea what’s happening to that? There is no discussion about where that money is going to be used. It’s no wonder there are huge amounts of criticism from fans and a lack of confidence from supporters. They’ve got to get to grips with that.
What are the next steps that you want to see the WRU take?
Dan Hallett (DSC): What I want to see and what I think will happen are slightly different. We’ve all discussed the separation of the professional and community game so that each part of the game can be in control of its own destiny. The community game should be aspiring to be the best it can be, to be the focus of the community, while the pro game needs to be released from the constraints of their current governance structure.
As the chairmen and CEOs of our teams, we’ve got incredibly successful business people who know how to grow businesses, so let them get on and do it.
Grant Berni (OSC): What everyone needs to be made clear on as soon as possible is about the use of this word ‘roles’ for the different teams. From our point of view, the roles are exactly the same and we all want to be the best region out there. There’s still a doubt hanging there about having one super region, where the money goes in, like a Leinster-type set-up. We need all this cleared up so everybody knows where they stand.
From our point of view, we just want four really competitive regions. That’s good for the game, our sponsors and our league.
Huw Jones (CF10): I’d like to see the Dragons becoming independent because that then puts the four regions in a similar situation. Then they can really start working together like PRL (Premier Rugby Limited) in England. At the moment, it’s a lot more difficult to have political influence within PRB. Once they’ve done that, they can form that type of body and have that type of influence. That is the key.
I don’t think it’s any secret that the four regions haven’t worked particularly well together within the PRB. There have been disagreements and once you have that fissure created by differing points of view then you’re not going to have influence. It becomes a divided room.
I also think they need to renegotiate the PRA (Professional Rugby Agreement). It’s hugely disadvantageous to the regions and that’s why there has been a reduction in funding.
One of the things that came out of the Oakwell Report, and they could only have got this from the WRU, is that they're forecasting an increased turnover from the WRU in the next few years but the amount of money available for the regions is declining. It can only be because a portion of the money is going somewhere else. We don’t know where that is because they’re not transparent about it.
Barrie Jones (Crys16): The issue with the PRB is that a guy involved in an amateur club on the executive board has the weight to stop what you’re trying to do. I don’t think that exists anywhere else in professional sport. I’ll admit it if I’m wrong but I don’t think it does.
We’re 15 months away from a World Cup. We should be making every effort to win the World Cup and it goes without saying that the four pro teams support that.
How satisfied have you been with what the regions themselves have done to manage things in recent times?
Dan Hallett (DSC): Generally, they’ve done as well as they could. Players and staff all took pay cuts and the like. I’m not sure there was much else they could do when you’re expecting to get £26million between the four and suddenly you’re left with substantially less. Then you’re relying on the robustness of your own structures. Thankfully, I think the four pro teams were pretty well organised on that front.
Grant Berni (OSC): Given the circumstances I think we’ve done reasonably well. With the constraints in place I don’t think we could have done much more. The major challenge is how do you get people who are now used to watching rugby in empty stadiums from home, thinking it’s rubbish, out of their armchair and turning up to games again.
How do we go forward and re-engage everyone? To be honest, I think there’s a lot the press can contribute in terms of helping that. We’ve all got our bit to do to encourage people to come back. For me, the focus has to be getting people engaged again and getting new audiences.
Huw Jones (CF10): In many ways, the regions have done a phenomenal job to just keep going. When you think they were expecting a budget of £26million and it was then £3million before they found another few million at the end of the year to throw in, that had a mega impact. It must have had a huge impact on all of the directors in terms of what they were thinking.
The regions went through a difficult situation when Project Reset was thrown at them, which was a move away from the approach of benefactors chucking money in. So Peter Thomas (former Cardiff Rugby chairman) wrote off, or capitalised, a lot of his loans at Cardiff and the balance sheet looked significantly more healthy. Then the pandemic hit us, hardly any income is coming in from the WRU and now the balance sheet doesn’t look great again because the liabilities have gone up.
If you’re a director, you’ll be wondering why you’re bothering, when you’re trying to do your best and we keep on being kicked at any and every opportunity. They’ve had stick in the past, and CF10 have given Cardiff stick, but in the last three or four years they’ve done a phenomenal job trying to change that around.
Barrie Jones (Crys16): At the Scarlets, we’re happy we’ve come through it so far and there is a rocky road ahead. We’ve got a supporter director on the board, so we get a little bit of information and we know how difficult it has been. We’ve been hanging on by the skin of our teeth and I’m sure it’s been the same for the other sides.
What have you made of the first year of the URC and the four new South African teams coming on board?
Grant Berni (OSC): They’ve been a real shock to the system in terms of how they’ve performed in the second half of the season. It’s been brilliant. The URC promised a hell of a lot, it was a fantastic opportunity to step away from what was viewed as a pretty stagnant and biased set-up before. It’s partially delivered on that but it’s still massively let down by the standards of refereeing, which is the bane of Celtic rugby for years.
So there is great promise. It is still slightly convoluted in terms of qualification and not knowing how many times you’re going to be playing a particular team, etc. It’s not ideal but it’s still an improvement on the last couple of years. The ideal world – a British and Irish league – is miles away from this but we’ve got to make the best of what we’ve got.
Barrie Jones (Crys16): The big thing for us is kick-off times, really. 7.30pm on a Saturday night is a disaster for us. We get a lot of support from the whole county of Dyfed and there is no transport down there at that time of night. Forget it.
Huw Jones (CF10): You have to say that the South Africans have really shown the way and we’re going to really struggle to be consistently competitive against them unless there is investment in the regions. Until we get the equivalent of the big ugly South African forwards, then we are not going to be competitive. We’re going to struggle to get into the Champions Cup and be competitive there.
In terms of the matchday experience that is being offered, where can that be improved to entice new audiences?
Grant Berni (OSC): As a supporters club, the matchday experience is something we focus on a lot. We put live music on, we interview the players and it’s taken us a long time to get the Ospreys on board but I think the new management appreciate that. We had a fairground on the edge of the stadium for the Scarlets game and it was free with a ticket and there were loads of kids turning up.
Kick-off times are essential to this. You can’t encourage youngsters to turn up for an 8pm kick-off on a Friday night or 1pm on a Sunday. We want to develop habits.
That said, if there is a great game of rugby on show and there are great players on the pitch every time then you probably don’t care too much about the rest of it. Product on the pitch is massive.
Huw Jones (CF10): What everybody wants is success. Anything else is almost peripheral. CF10 has worked with the club on pre-match stuff but getting our product right on the pitch is the crucial bit. We need our top individuals available for important games. To be fair to the South Africans, they’ve brought strong squads. Ireland invariably play their second teams because they know that, invariably, they can beat us.
People will be attracted by big name stars – Siya Kolisi or Johnny Sexton, the Josh Adams of the world, Liam Williams, Taulupe Faletau - but if they’re going to be restricted from playing then that’s going to have a detrimental impact on people’s perceptions.
Barrie Jones (Crys 16): You’ve got to win rugby matches, at the end of the day, and it takes investment.
Dan Hallett (DSC): Generally matchday is pretty good. They’ve put a hell of a lot of effort into the pre-match stuff with the marquee on the Cabbage Patch and things. With what we’ve got, we do a pretty good job. To give credit to the team at Rodney Parade, they are constantly asking for feedback on things they can improve on.
Obviously there are bricks and mortar issues with the old Compeed Stand being a bit rough around the edges but they do a pretty good job with it. That terrace is usually pretty good as well.
Do you turn up to games out of a sense of duty or do you turn up expecting to be entertained?
Huw Jones (CF10): I go with my son, we go out for a couple of pints before the game, we have a whinge and a moan as we leave the Arms Park, have another couple of pints and then we catch the train home. It’s a habit for us because we’re committed season ticket-holders. It’s father-son bonding and there is a lot of that at Cardiff, the same people keep coming back year after year irrespective. But you can’t rely on that and it’s building that market that is the challenge.
Where are your levels of optimism over the medium-term future?
Barrie Jones (Crys16): The last game of the season gave me some optimism. I thought there was a total attitude change from us. Locally, I think that Dwayne Peel is on the right lines.
I come back to governance and that’s where I’m a little more reticent to say that we can do it as a nation. We really do need to breakaway from well-meaning community game committeemen having a say over how the four pro teams are run.
Huw Jones (CF10): I’m not optimistic, to be honest. The financial situation is going to be really difficult and I don’t see any impetus at all from the WRU to make change. I think Cardiff have some challenges. We know about the additional year in players contracts that resulted in Dai Young not being able to make the changes that he wanted to.
It’s going to be really difficult and it’s worrying that the WRU have operated on the basis of taking on non-rugby risks like the hotel but passing on all the rugby risk to the regions. It’s a bizarre situation.
Dan Hallett (DSC): All I can say is that I’m hopeful we’ll have some answers over private ownership before the season starts. If the Dragons can get that sorted then I’m considerably more optimistic on that front. I think David Buttress might have a few people in mind in terms of getting some investment in. On the playing side of it, I think we’ve done some smart recruitment but with everyone cutting their squads to suit their cloth, it’s slightly worrying that if we have a tranche of injuries in one position then we might start struggling.
I think the only way is up in some respects but I think we will be more competitive. Personally, I’d like to see a bit more funding going into academies, where we’re producing players that will go on to play for Wales. That’s where some money needs to go.
Grant Berni (OSC): I’m fairly positive that we seem to have got it right off the pitch at the Ospreys in terms of the structures that we’re building. We’re going in the right direction there. The coaching set-up isn’t settled but towards the end of the season, when we do manage to get everyone back on the pitch, we can deliver.
From an Ospreys perspective, I can see the plan of where we’re trying to go.
