Just as all good things have to come to an end, so bad things tend to eventually stop as well. The Welsh regions will hope so.
But maybe things will have to get worse for Cardiff, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets before they get better.
The rugby season for the professional teams in Wales ended around 7.30pm on Saturday evening when the Scarlets bowed out of the European Challenge Cup at the semi-final stage. Glasgow Warriors were the better side in Llanelli — it’s hard to argue against a 5-1 try count in their favour — but the hosts were hammered by injuries, with Javan Sebastian, Johnny Williams, Vaea Fifita and Morgan Jones forced off during the game.
It is also pretty clear who will not win the Llanelli Star newspaper's man of the year gong for 2023. That would be French referee Mathieu Raynal after his decision not to yellow card Glasgow’s Ollie Smith and award a penalty try for what the whole of west Wales probably felt was a deliberate knock-on in the clash at Parc y Scarlets. A converted try then would have cut the deficit to four points with 11 or so minutes to play.
But it wasn’t to be and the Scarlets exited Europe at the last-four stage yet again, with Llanelli 2023 following tales of semi-final woe in Reading (2000), Nottingham (2002), Leicester (2007) and Dublin (2018). What can we say?
The Killers’ song they play after games Parc y Scarlets, Human, contains the line: “Sometimes I get nervous when I see an open door.” Scarlets didn’t react badly when opportunity presented itself on Saturday evening. They were just up against a very good side and circumstances conspired against them. Some things are just not meant to be. At least they kept their season going.
But it has been a brutally tough campaign for pretty much all in the men’s professional game in Wales.
No assessment of it can be written without taking into account the desperate backdrop against which it has been played out. Expecting players to put their bodies on the line amid huge potential uncertainty over their jobs and wages was something those responsible should be ashamed about.
Even now we learn that the regions are still waiting for the first instalment of the new financial deal they signed with the Welsh Rugby Union. It goes without saying at this point that we should note that when pens were put to paper there was a line indicating that key features of the new Professional Rugby Agreement would be "reliant on certain external approvals related to existing loan arrangements". Not so much the devil in the detail as the detail making it devilishly hard for the professional teams to function as they could.
Under the circumstances, performances in Europe were good from Ospreys, Cardiff and Scarlets.
Ospreys’ Champions Cup fixtures saw them matched with English champions Leicester Tigers and French title holders Montpellier. At the outset of the season, to borrow from Muhammad Ali, they looked to have two chances: Slim, and none. And Slim had just been spotted heading for the local railway station.
Yet Toby Booth’s side defeated Montpellier home and away and scored a monumental victory over the Tigers at Welford Road. They bowed out of the competition against Saracens at the StoneX Stadium, but they could be proud of their effort there and over their five European games.
Cardiff, too, impressed in Europe, comfortably qualifying for the Challenge Cup knockout stages and accounting for a fully-loaded visiting Sale Sharks side in the last-16. With their scrum on top and Jarrod Evans and Rhys Priestland dovetailing brilliantly behind, Cardiff delivered their best display of the season.
Just days earlier their former chairman and benefactor Peter Thomas had passed away. Tributes don’t come much better than the one Cardiff delivered to Thomas on that memorable night at the Arms Park against Sale.
The Challenge Cup allowed the Scarlets to breathe life into their season, with their win over Clermont Auvergne particularly notable. The Dragons had a different experience in the knockout stages of the same competition, coming unstuck 73-33 against Glasgow at Scotstoun. The hosts scored 11 tries and their visitors missed 30 tackles. The assumption is that the Dragons’ debrief a couple of days later wasn’t an exercise in unbridled joy.
Short of depth and with Wales calls hitting them, the regions found the going tough in the United Rugby Championship. Cardiff finished 10th, four points off the playoff places, while Ospreys were 13th, Scarlets ended the campaign in 14th and Dragons’ early-season promise faded as they trailed in 15th in a 16-team league.
The Welsh quartet won just 13 of their 48 league games against teams from other countries. Even given the aforementioned difficult backdrop the regions were playing against, that statistic is grim.
The Welsh Rugby Union had the campaign from hell, too.
Chief executive Steve Phillips, who found it hard to make the leap from former finance man to poster boy of a new, enlightened WRU, stepped down amid allegations of a toxic culture at the organisation. A BBC documentary had aired claims of misogyny, sexism, racism and homophobia. Amid a rising storm, Nigel Walker, who had stepped in as acting CEO from his performance director role, warned of an "existential crisis" for Welsh rugby. An independent review panel is now looking into the allegations that were made.
There was a strike threat before the England game in the Six Nations from Wales players disenchanted on a number of fronts, with skipper Ken Owens calling Welsh rugby "a laughing stock".
Governance changes were introduced which give Welsh rugby a chance of meeting the demands of professional sport in the 21st century. They are a step in the right direction, one of many that need to be taken by the game in Wales before too many caps can be thrown into the air.
And the men’s national team were underwhelming.
Wales won just once during the autumn, ultimately sacking Wayne Pivac because of it, and then enjoyed a solitary success in the Six Nations after reappointing Warren Gatland. There were expectations among some of an immediate pick-up, but a Gatland bounce didn’t happen, albeit there were glimmers of hope over the final two games — nothing to put the flags out over, but modest improvements, all the same.
Going back to the regional game, we still await clarity over Dai Young, with Cardiff’s director of rugby suspended amid alleged complaints against him by members of the club staff.
Amid all the gloom, Wales Women bucked the trend. If a heavy Six Nations defeat against England underlined that they still have plenty of work to do to compete against the very best, wins over Italy, Scotland and Ireland - securing a second consecutive third-place finish behind heavyweights Red Roses and France - suggest they are heading in the right direction. Their openside flanker, Alex Callender, was little short of sensational, while Sisilia Tuipulotu also excelled, along with Gwenllian Pyrs, Beth Lewis and plenty more besides. A silver lining among the clouds, then.
But it has been a challenging season in Wales, one few will be sorry to see the back of.
Best regional player
Sione Kalamafoni (Scarlets)
At one point he seemed to be winning man-of-the-match awards every week. Dwayne Peel described him as "brilliant"; there will be those who will think the coach was still dealing in understatement.
Best regional team
Cardiff
The league table doesn’t lie, with the Arms Park club nine points clear of their nearest Welsh rivals, the Ospreys.
Best win
Ospreys’ 21-10 win over Montpellier in France
The Welsh side hadn’t won a game in Europe for two years and were up against the French champions, a week after losing at home to Leicester. But with the likes of Morgan Morris and Justin Tipuric outstanding, they got the job done in the Heineken Champions Cup clash. Cardiff’s EPCR Challenge Cup success against Sale Sharks and the Scarlets’ victory over Clermont Auvergne were also exceptional.
Best match
Cardiff's win over Sale Sharks at the Arms Park
On an emotional night just days after the passing of the former chairman and benefactor Peter Thomas, Cardiff got everything just right on and off the field.
Best signing
Thomas Young
The flanker played the house down almost every time he took the field for Cardiff after his switch from Wasps.
Best try
Justin Tipuric’s score for the Ospreys against Montpellier in Swansea
A special effort indeed, seeing the flanker put in a cross kick, with Keelan Giles tiptoeing down the touchline before using the boot himself to play the ball infield for Tipuric to regather and slide in for a superbly executed finish.
Biggest loss
Will Rowlands’ departure from the Dragons is a hammer blow for the Rodney Parade team.
Enlightened coach
The campaign was a tough one for the Dragons, but Dai Flanagan’s decision to stand down Angus O’Brien after the utility man suffered a number of head knocks was seriously praiseworthy. The player had passed the return-to-play protocols but Flanagan opted not to use him immediately, saying: “I need to protect these players. Nobody knows what goes on inside the head.”
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