It is no exaggeration to say the entire future of Welsh rugby is at stake in Port Talbot this Sunday morning. “You sense it is a significant moment in our history,” confirms Ieuan Evans, chairman of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and a former national captain, as he awaits the critical vote which will determine if the sport in Wales can step back from the abyss. “We love a watershed in Wales, we have them every fortnight.”
Evans’s slightly dark humour is understandable. There is a good reason why he is spending his 59th birthday talking to the Guardian and it is because the WRU faces a binary choice. Either there is approval for a package of governance reforms that drags it into the 21st century or total disaster looms. Should the WRU not obtain the necessary 75% majority at this weekend’s emergency general meeting, the dinosaurs will inherit the earth.
