The WRU are a mess and they have to accept responsibility for the mess we’re in. There’s too much of a Cardiff bias for my liking, a lot of the senior appointments over the last few years have had connections with Cardiff and I think that’s unhealthy. I don’t think the latest effort to revamp the domestic game has been particularly well thought through.
I went to watch the Aberavon last Friday night when they played Newport, in the new Super Rugby Cymru tournament and it was a decent game to be fair, 32 -36 at the end with plenty of effort and action.
For those that don’t know the SRC league was created last season by the WRU with the aim of developing youngsters in a competitive environment to be able to make the step up to playing at regional and ultimately international level. There are 10 teams in the competition and all of them had to apply for a place. Neath were denied a place in the competition while Cardiff, Merthyr and Pontypridd didn’t apply. As only 9 teams were selected and 10 were required, the WRU gave the remaining clubs including Neath another opportunity to apply, on this occasion Cardiff applied and got the nod!
Aberavon had a very young team which included a number of teenagers and players in their early 20’s, Newport on the other hand had a much older and bigger team which was boosted by at least 1 Dragon’s first team player. How is playing youngsters against an experienced team of primarily old heads going to develop young players. If development in a competitive environment is the name of the game why don’t the WRU mandate that match day squads had to have a wide mix of players for example, 3 under x 20 players, 4 players aged 20 to 23 etc etc so that there was a focus on playing a developing youngsters? The WRU also cut funding to the clubs so sustaining and supporting players is even harder - it’s mental.
The WRU need to work with the regions and really focus on developing younger players.
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