Bridging Gatland's Poor Law

We again stand on the verge of the Autumnal series (what I lovingly called back in the days of Roger Lewis as The Blitz on the Debt Series) and look to the National team to give us an outlet for our patriotic leanings and to entertain with feats of bravery and daring-do. Thousands will descend on the Principality Stadium, decked in red and white and with a hundred different strands of confidence and reasons for being there. The Welsh rugby universe will again centre on a small area of grass, steel & plastic and the stadium will again be converted to a Welsh Cathedral of Dreams ... or Screams as the group next you get up for the 10th time that half to get the bar!

The Welsh team, the top of the pyramid, the ultimate destination for every school boy with a passing interest in the game, where we implore those selected to tread softly on our dreams. For years the team vied with the University of Wales for pre-eminence as the representative vehicle of Welsh nationhood. Where debate around the selection of the starting XV would be fierce, tribal and usually without any real acceptance of others views. As a child I remember attending the Wales v Fiji game in 1985, as Terry Holmes departed the field on came Ray Giles, I remember the chap next to my father saying “Giles will be Wales’ scrum half for the next 5 years’ My father who has never been given to expressing opinions in public gave him the exact same look he gave me the first time I came home ‘one over the eight’.

Of course these days the Welsh rugby team cuts an even greater gorge into the consciousness of the Welsh Rugby supporter. For a variety of reasons, from a fixture list that is as long as your arm to the explicit positioning of the team and its endeavours in the media eye, it has become the rugby equivalent of an oil tanker. Those of us that do not subscribe to believing that International rugby is the most important level in the game are like the rugby equivalent of Greenpeace protestors in our dinghy’s racing alongside. Despite evidence to the contrary we do not wish to stop the boat nor alter its course but perhaps merely to slow it down a bit.

The idea central to the squad and an explicit mission statement from the Union is the best Welsh players playing in Wales for one of the 4 professional teams. This is ostensibly a decent proposition and one that is admirable in many ways. This idea manifests itself in the WRU Senior Players Selection Policy or as its much more widely known as ‘Gatland’s Law’. There have been countless blogs, tweets, newspaper articles and air time given to this policy so it would be fruitless to outline the minutiae of its intention, its result and its future. What is more of interest for me is the general direction of travel.

As I have alluded to I don’t believe the International game is the most important level of rugby, I do enjoy it on occasion and of course I recognise its merit and its place in driving the financial security of the game at all levels. The Wales team is for only the chosen few, this sits comfortably with me as it is the peak of the pyramid and should be seen as such. My concern is that this level of the game unreasonably and dispassionately affects the levels that feed it and is incredibly selfish, beyond what you would expect from existing as an elite level.

By dictating to players, whether explicitly or otherwise where they can play is unfair, unreasonable and unbalanced when assessed against the wider society we live in. We live in the great age of movement.  Movement of finance, trade, ideas and people is the fundamental truism of the 21st Century. Yet when it comes to professional rugby in Wales, we see movement away from here as somehow negative and somehow undesired. All of this is terribly unhelpful and too Daily Mail and way too simplistic to offer any meaningful analysis of a way forward for the game in Wales.

Players are people and some may need to widen their horizons, as Aldous Huxley said, ‘to travel is to discover everyone is wrong about other countries’ There are certain players like Jamie Roberts, Mike Phillips and Luke Charteris who show that by moving away from Wales it is possible to not only survive but also get better. Aneurin Bevan’s much quoted take on Truth is relevant here. We all want to see a successful Wales XV so by harnessing the positivity that comes from a few being somewhere new can only assist in this goal. There are many ways in which rugby can have its penny and its bun, without restricting the Coaches selection and potential game plan.

From not paying non Welsh based players when playing for Wales to limiting the number of caps in a season (on current projections I would say that 20 caps a season should be the limit for non Welsh based players J) From ensuring limited Welsh based direct sponsorship to limited pre/post match media duties would be ways to consider before the draconian ‘Play for Wales Play in Wales’ mantra is trotted out. Of course the Law is already in tatters due to the WildCard picks that seemingly give the instruction ‘Do as you please’. At best the ‘Law’ is symbolism and deserves to be consigned to the waste bin of spurious ideas and silly Empire building attempts.

An argument is that the 4 professional teams have developed, harnessed and promoted these players and is galling to see them leave for clubs in England and France. That is a perfectly reasonable standpoint. However, like all businesses the 4 professional teams are making investments and trying to ensure they obtain the comparative advantage. It is in their economic interest to develop young players to feed into their ranks. Speculating to accumulate as the well worn phrase goes. The 4 professional teams do invest heavily in developing community links, the sheer breadth has been touched upon in our own blogs previously. Again this is a double edged drive, harvest potentially great players and harvest potential supporters. It is a very hard-nosed business decision and necessary.

For all this, in the public’s eye the argument for not encouraging players to leave has merits and certainly has traction. This traction can only be on a superficial level, I hesitate to use the word romantic but of course it is. Being Welsh we do love to bathe in the romantic, however detached from the reality it may be. Players gain our affection that play to our deepest stereotypical desires in a rugby team, oh how we love it when we see players going around the opposition rather than through them, how we admire that touch of football that beats the heavy handedness of power, oh how we love to keep everyone in boxes and berate them if they seek different horizons from our own. All so very stereotypical, using the broadest brush strokes and in the final analysis absurd.

The model falls when we realise that perhaps the biggest supporter boons occur when our team sign a World Class player, who wasn’t harnessed, developed and given a chance by the development structure underpinning the professional game. This World Class player is exactly what we need to see for our teams, or using the dreaded Western Mail-ism; we need to see Box Office talent at our rugby grounds. All talk of developing players and giving the Regional pathway primacy is forgotten when the likes of Xavier Rush, Filo Tiatia and Ben Blair lace up their boots in anger. Happy to take the attitudes they can instil, the lessons they can teach, the success they are part of. Poor Johnny Davies from Aberbythere, on the professional rugby scrap heap at 21, played for Wales all through the age groups but not quite good enough. Despite the emotional pull, the hard-nosed rugby decision must be ‘Good, quality finds its level’ or at the very least we should engender the belief in learning by watching & then doing. By being better because you are better not because you are from this region should be the fundamental requisite in any professional sport, let alone rugby.

Now of course rugby as with life is about balance. We cannot celebrate too loudly if all the best Welsh players were to leave and play in England or France. The idea of local heroes is in its infancy in professional rugby in Wales but it does have merits, potential heroes need existing role models. I do not believe that role models have nationality. However and it is here I probably differ from a good 99.9% of the Welsh rugby public, the idea of the best Welsh players plying their trade in the Pro12 comes second to the best players plying their trade in the Pro12. I cheered as loudly when Ben Blair scored a try as I do when Dan Fish scores, I admire the fortitude of Ray Lee-Lo as much as I did of Jamie Roberts. I understand the difference of course but to me it is all about the team. My team.

Wales is a small country, geographically and certainly by population, when we have thought big we become larger and have a capacity for world leading advances, from 1970s coaching to Graham Henry’s Pods (OK maybe that only works if you play in Black) By limiting the opportunity for players we make our rugby seem small. By ignoring the geographical proximity of perhaps the two biggest rugby economies strikes of protectionism and this must be avoided at all costs.

So, Gatland’s Law should be seen as more of a guideline, it should be accepted that some players will stay in Wales and some will go. How do we ensure Wales is successful at International Level? By thinking maturely about what we need and accepting the reality of society we are part of. We should avoid treating the Severn Bridge as an impenetrable dam that ambition and talent crash against and are propelled backward slightly smaller and with slightly less energy, it is a Bridge after all.

As we get ready for the November games it is with some hope that Wales start to tap into the blaze of colour that rests beneath the red jersey, somewhere else can teach us a lot, it can make here very vibrant. Above all else, making our game vibrant should become at least a (rug)by-law!