CF10 Rugby Trust

Not the result we wanted on Friday night but we still think the sentiment in our article in the programme is still worth sharing!

CF10 article in the Cardiff v Scarlets programme

What is it that made Welsh rugby great?

There are many factors, but perhaps the most crucial is the presence of several truly great rugby clubs. Clubs that were the envy of other nations.

Clubs who rivalled each other on the field for decades, with that rivalry leading to a drive to keep improving, keep finding new stars, keep innovating and keep striving for excellence.

There was a time not so very long ago when Welsh rugby was renowned for such clubs. Much unlike the present day, when Welsh rugby and in particular the Welsh Rugby Union, has become a byword for dysfunction and incompetent leadership.

Two of those great clubs take the field today. The Arms Park, showing her age but on her day still a fabulous spectacle of noise and colour, will be filled with fans in Blue and Black and Scarlet. 

These Christmas derby games are a timely reminder of what once was and what can be again.

It is unclear if Abi Tierney, Dave Reddin or Richard Collier Keywood will be at any of the Christmas derby matches. If they are, then hopefully they will find reasons to pause, and wonder if their role really is to crush professional club rugby under a boot heel of central control and “optimal solutions”.

Perhaps instead, their role should be to allow clubs like ours the autonomy to enable us once again to flourish. 

As we at CF10 have made clear many times, a return to private ownership (properly vetted and with all due diligence accomplished, naturally) cannot come soon enough. And its heartening to know that there are reported to be at least four bidders for our club.

We can only hope that the winning bid is one with the long term health of Welsh rugby in mind. Not one that offers a short term fix. 

Its also to be hoped that the new owners will demand a great deal of autonomy in decision making on and off the field.

Fans of our four remaining professional sides will know only too well that over the past 15 years, WRU interference and attempts at half baked micro management have increased every year. It is hard to find any justification on the field to justify that officious approach.

The great clubs of Wales are not something to be swept aside, they are something to be cherished. As any historian of the game knows, when Cardiff and Llanelli are both strong, Wales is strong. When our two clubs are weak…. Well its not hard to work out the consequences as we currently live with the inheritance of years of WRU mismanagement.

The secret to Welsh rugby’s renewal is right under our noses. It is in clashes between age old rivals. Its to be found on days and evenings like today.

We must be under the influence of something much stronger than Christmas brandy to even be contemplating losing clashes like this from the rugby calendar. Losing clubs like these would be an act of baffling self sabotage and the most blinkered kind of short term thinking.

If WRU senior management are here tonight. We hope they have fun. And we hope they hear the chants of Cardiff and Scarlets fans and feel something special in the air. 

They’ll be hearing and feeling the sound of Welsh rugby’s true heartbeat.