Official other Welsh sport chat

[pclaude]

Sept 20, 2022 19:06:11 GMT @smithersjones said:

Is she more of a one day classics rider or do you think she will be able to ride the grand tours too? guess at 17 that is something she will find out as she gets experience,

Not so much of a distinction in the Womens tour. This may change as it matures.

Zoe Backstedt has just won the junior road race which means Wales sit on top of the medal table. With Elynor a good shot at the u23 title this afternoon. This would put a house on top of the medal table.

She didn’t just win. She annihilated the opposition. You shouldn’t win a world title with a lone attack after 10km. 

[hooky]

Zoe Backstedt us gonna be a superstar in cycling if she avoids serious injury. Do hold 4 junior world titles in different disciplines when 17 (16 I assume when she won the road race first last year) is insane and she won the two world titles this week by a landslide.

She should surely walk the young person's sports personality of the year - if not than it is totally corrupt (no doubt they'll give it to some female English football talent who has achieved nothing to date to fit in with this year's theme!).

Wales should be extremely proud of her!


Road World Championships: Zoe Backstedt defends road race title to add to time trial success

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/63018575

[allezlesrouges]

I've just seen that the Welsh rugby union are contemplating dissolving one of the Welsh regional teams and merging them with Ealing - a 2nd division English team - and basing the club in London!

I get it's no use comparing sports as I want all Welsh national teams doing well. But blimey, the WRU and the FAW couldn't be more different at the moment in their view of what Wales is and should be

[allezlesrouges]

[bale-droed]

Hahahaha wtf! I remember the talks years ago of London Welsh and London Scottish joining and London Welsh we’re going to be our 5th region. That made sense. In the end London Welsh got promoted, got greedy and folded. Ealing I believe is near to where Welsh were based Before they moved to Oxford. This is just pure greed from people in that area and in the WRU. You can’t do this when you haven’t given the North a team. Years ago there was talk of having a 5th team based in Colwyn that played under 23 players who played for the other 4. Again that was a great idea. But seriously wtf is this??

[allezlesrouges]

Whenever I hear someone say rugby is our national sport now, I always say to them "then why is our most northerly pro team Llanelli? You know, that town on the south coast"

I think the cold hard reality is that there just isn't that much interest in rugby in Wales. Most people would say that sounds crazy, but the attendances at club level show what people really think about the sport. People like the occasion of the 6N, not the sport itself, and that has been enough to keep clubs afloat. However, now that there have been clear cases of mismanagement, it's all falling apart. The grass roots interest isn't enough to sustain the pro game

Creating a region in London will only make things worse

[garynysmon]

Feb 16, 2023 11:35:32 GMT allezlesrouges said:

But blimey, the WRU and the FAW couldn't be more different at the moment in their view of what Wales is and should be

We really haven't got a foot to stand on given that 5 of the biggest Welsh based clubs play in the English leagues. Fans travelling away en-masse to English towns every other week does nothing for our supposed 'independent football nation'.

[bale-droed]

Im always banging on about how super rugby’s original concept failed. Super rugby average attendance in Australia has dropped from 38,000 to 7,000. It’s a broken system. They’ve kicked out South Africa, Argentina and Japan. If they couldn’t make money to sustain 5 teams in a country of 25 million why do Wales think regional rugby makes sense? It doesn’t. Local rivalry is king. I was a season ticket holder for 4 years at Dragons and not once did I ever hear of anyone going to an away game in Scotland, Ireland or Italy. No one cares.

We need to accept in rugby that as the game becomes more professional that we cannot be France, South Africa or England. How we survive is get rid of the 60 cap rule , develop players and sell them on. We need to be rugby’s version of the Netherlands or Croatia and then that money should filter back into the game. If a top player is wanted by a French , English or Japanese team that’s good for us. They go to a better Comp to improve and another young player comes in for a chance. A talent merry go round that’s how we stay competitive. But for rugby I fear all this is too late. It’s 15 years of shit dominated by England, France and SA (after Ireland fizzle out in 3 years)

[hooky]

Its really sad.

Don't think Ireland will fizzle out unfortunately. They have a very healthy financial position - with a very strong cash balance (if you ignore the flattering impact of debentures loans and don't count that as debt, which it is of course!).

Our problem is we don't - we have bank debt and apathy amongst the supporters of the underperforming regions.

Its horrific for those many Welsh players whose contracts run out in a couple of months, just a couple of months before the rugby world cup by the way! The supposed guardians of the game, the WRU, have held up the contract negotiations for almost 2 years and you could suspect they are trying to effect the bankruptcy of a region so that they only have to fund 3 and not 4. You couldn't make up how the WRU are destroying Welsh rugby through their actions. They are accountable to no one, as the amateur clubs control the votes and therefore control the professional game in Welsh rugby, which generates effectively all of the c.£100mn of income generated for the WRU. Therefore the idiot administrators are not held to account by anyone. The WRU idea apparently is to kill the most productive Welsh region - the Ospreys - and replace it with one in Ealing, You could not make this shit up!

The ongoing lack of a contract conclusion is why the Wales players are considering going on strike.

[surge]

Never understood why 60 caps for that rule really. Even if trying to achieve same thing, why not 50 caps?

We're in situation now where finances are even more stretched than usual so may force change of approach. Think the WRU shot themselves in the foot really with bad roll-out of regions initially, local fans not wanting to give up on club game, and it hasn't recovered since.

A real shame. Not everyone will want to play football and we need active, healthier society as possible really...even to just put less pressure on our NHS.

[allezlesrouges]

Feb 16, 2023 12:44:28 GMT garynysmon said:

Feb 16, 2023 11:35:32 GMT allezlesrouges said:

But blimey, the WRU and the FAW couldn't be more different at the moment in their view of what Wales is and should be

We really haven't got a foot to stand on given that 5 of the biggest Welsh based clubs play in the English leagues. Fans travelling away en-masse to English towns every other week does nothing for our supposed 'independent football nation'.

I take your point and it's a fair criticism. However, it does at least show around 50k fans are willing to turn out to watch club football every week as things stand around half that attend club rugby matches in Wales

[hooky]

Feb 16, 2023 16:42:42 GMT surge said:

Never understood why 60 caps for that rule really. Even if trying to achieve same thing, why not 50 caps?

We're in situation now where finances are even more stretched than usual so may force change of approach. Think the WRU shot themselves in the foot really with bad roll-out of regions initially, local fans not wanting to give up on club game, and it hasn't recovered since.

A real shame. Not everyone will want to play football and we need active, healthier society as possible really...even to just put less pressure on our NHS.

Great point about the societal benefits of being healthy. As we know the great thing about rugby is that it really can accommodate all shapes and sizes and its great that someone carrying a bit of excess timber at least has a sport they can easily fit into and get that heart pumping a little.

We have done amazingly well for a country of just 3mn at rugby - joint top winners of the 6, 5 and 4 nations overall with England, as country with 20x our population and have won 2x as many grand slams as Ireland and Scotland combined, countries which are >2x larger than us. I also love that the game was fairly classless in Wales, unlike throughout Europe and the world where it is dominated by public school boys. Hope we find a way to renew ourselves again and compete again, with things looking so dark at the moment. However, that rugby team has performed way beyond expectations despite the idiotic WRU in the past, so I would not completely give up on us completely.

[hooky]

60 cap rule is to keep players in Wales, so they can keep control of them - so, for example, they are fully available for Welsh squad training sessions ahead of games, tournaments and tours.  At the moment all of the players playing outside Wales have to be realised back to their clubs for this weekends club matches, for example, which is disruptive.

Also it is easier to get combinations, familiarity, a style of play in place if your players came from just the 4 Welsh regions.

For example, the Irish players are clearly better than us right now BUT they massively benefit from 10-13 of their starting team typically coming from Leinster (their Dublin province) and playing a similar game to them. Compare that to England, where there are trying to quickly combine players from around a dozen different clubs with different styles.

They probably have to scrap the 60 cap rule because of the stupid mismanagement of the WRU with players needing to secure their futures and given the big salary and job cuts coming but this of course will be very bad for us if we end up with a team made up of players from 12 different clubs, for the reasons I highlight above

[insertname]

Feb 16, 2023 12:34:22 GMT allezlesrouges said:

Whenever I hear someone say rugby is our national sport now, I always say to them "then why is our most northerly pro team Llanelli? You know, that town on the south coast"

I think the cold hard reality is that there just isn't that much interest in rugby in Wales. Most people would say that sounds crazy, but the attendances at club level show what people really think about the sport. People like the occasion of the 6N, not the sport itself, and that has been enough to keep clubs afloat. However, now that there have been clear cases of mismanagement, it's all falling apart. The grass roots interest isn't enough to sustain the pro game

Creating a region in London will only make things worse

I think that’s unfair: Welsh people travel in big numbers to support the Wales team and the lions on tour so it’s wrong to say that it’s just the occasion of the 6N that people care about. It’s more the case that people have a large appetite for international rugby but can’t be bothered with regional rugby and to be honest that’s not really a surprise. Club rugby in England seems a hard sell going by some of their crowd figures (and seeing the financial issues Wasps and Worcester had). European club rugby outside of Ireland and France is difficult in capturing the imagination.

I’d like to see a British and Irish league system. Now is probably the time for it with the English league showing that they are struggling to make it on their own.

[mrpicton79]

Feb 16, 2023 23:56:18 GMT hooky said:

Feb 16, 2023 16:42:42 GMT surge said:

Great point about the societal benefits of being healthy. As we know the great thing about rugby is that it really can accommodate all shapes and sizes and its great that someone carrying a bit of excess timber at least has a sport they can easily fit into and get that heart pumping a little.

I know I'm being pedantic here and I get your general point, but that highlighted bit is one of those nauseating statements rugby folk repeat over and over. It's not even true. It's not a game for little people (rare anomalies like Shane Williams aside) or even average-sized people most of the time. If you look like a hippopotamus you can play in the front row. If you're built like a giraffe you can play in the second row. But in general it's just slight variations of "big". 

But back to the topic, these are pretty desperate times for Welsh rugby. There are rumours Cardiff and one other region are bankrupt. I mean it would be more surprising if any of them weren't in dire financial straits, none of them are making any money. You can see at regional level there's no passion for the game at all.

This isn't the WRU's fault but the governing bodies really need to make the game more entertaining as a spectacle, get the younger generations interested in rugby. Watching it you can see there's so many things that blight the game that never get addressed. The scrums, the "driving mauls" from lineouts, the endless penalty kicks at goal after whatever imaginary offence the referee thinks he's seen etc etc. The sport needs to move with the times, focus on the more spectacular elements of the game that might actually put bums on seats. Fat blokes sticking their heads up each others arses before falling on the ground probably isn't going to do that.

[garynysmon]

Feb 17, 2023 10:46:59 GMT mrpicton79 said:

This isn't the WRU's fault but the governing bodies really need to make the game more entertaining as a spectacle, get the younger generations interested in rugby. Watching it you can see there's so many things that blight the game that never get addressed. The scrum, the "driving mauls" from lineouts, the endless penalty kicks at goal after whatever imaginary offence the referee thinks he's seen etc etc. The sport needs to move with times, focus on the more spectacular elements of the game that might actually put bums on seats. Fat blokes sticking their heads up each others arses before falling on the ground probably isn't going to do that.

I can't profess to being a huge fan of either (truth be known I can't stand what Welsh Rugby Union stands for), but objectively speaking League is a much more interesting game to watch.

Having been designed to be a more interesting and exciting sport with the dawn of professionalism, when Union was still amateur, it shouldn't be surprising. But why it isn't more popular than it is outside of Lancashire and Yorkshire truly baffles me.

[dai]

Can someone explain what exactly Welsh rugby players are striking over? I've read something about not having job security and contracts, and I know some have a contract with the WRU directly and some with their clubs/regions.

[jimexotic]

Penalties in rugby have always left me feeling a bit baffled. This is probably largely down to my ignorance to really learn about the game but also because I like my sport simple and fun, football and boxing, you know exactly where you are with them.

"Penalty" - crowd cheer

I never see anything that makes me understand why something was given, it's a really shit part of the game which alienates casuals to a degree and stops casuals getting into it. Sports with rules like that are never going to be massive. People whine about the offside rule being hard to understand but it's always been relatively black and white, even now, plus when you watch football you can very quickly understand it with replays and diagrams. Penalties in rugby, if you are watching you just have to go along with it rather than turn to your mate, or in my case my cat because none of my mates want to watch that rubbish, and go "what the fuck was that for?"

[allezlesrouges]

Feb 17, 2023 15:52:40 GMT dai said:

Can someone explain what exactly Welsh rugby players are striking over? I've read something about not having job security and contracts, and I know some have a contract with the WRU directly and some with their clubs/regions.

Apparently the WRU are stalling over extending players contracts because they're saying they can't afford it

Remember that the club teams don't generate enough money for them to operate professionally. The clubs are artificially professional because they are WRU funded. The WRU gets all its money from selling out 75k seat 6N/autumn international games at high prices. It pays the players at club teams, and pays more for players that also play for Wales

For that reason the COVID-19 empty stadiums hit rugby much harder than football, the main source of revenue for all rugby in Wales was missing for 2 years. They are very much still feeling the impact of that. Now they are saying they can't afford to pay players the same amount, with some spokesmen coming out and saying that the WRU should have never paid that much for players as it's unsustainable. Even more shockingly they are saying this about players who have represented Wales!

Some players are being offered contracts that are 50% what they were previously on. Some are yet to be offered new contracts and are 4 months away from expiry, meaning they cannot get mortgages, or provide certainty for their families

Also remember the 60 cap rule. No Welsh player can play for a foreign club unless they have 60+ caps. By the time players reach that figure they are usually the wrong side of 30 and therefore attract less interest from abroad anyway. The 9 players in the current squad who are allowed to play abroad and play for Wales are; Ken Owens, Tomas Francis, Alun Wyn Jones, Taulupe Faletau, Justin Tipuric, Dan Biggar, George North, Leigh Halfpenny & Liam Williams. Only Biggar does

So essentially what we're about to see is a mass exodus of players from the national team to go and earn money abroad, or a lifting of the rule to try and force players to accept 50% wages. Either way it's a mess!

[allezlesrouges]

Feb 17, 2023 19:41:40 GMT jimexotic said:

Penalties in rugby have always left me feeling a bit baffled. This is probably largely down to my ignorance to really learn about the game but also because I like my sport simple and fun, football and boxing, you know exactly where you are with them.

"Penalty" - crowd cheer

I never see anything that makes me understand why something was given, it's a really shit part of the game which alienates casuals to a degree and stops casuals getting into it. Sports with rules like that are never going to be massive. People whine about the offside rule being hard to understand but it's always been relatively black and white, even now, plus when you watch football you can very quickly understand it with replays and diagrams. Penalties in rugby, if you are watching you just have to go along with it rather than turn to your mate, or in my case my cat because none of my mates want to watch that rubbish, and go "what the fuck was that for?"

I used to play for my school team because I'm 6ft2, and back then I was also quick, so I played as a centre. The peak of my rugby playing days was scoring 2 tries in the Cardiff schools cup final and lifting the trophy

Despite being a decent player I was always really hesitant around the breakdown because I didn't always understand what was or wasn't a penalty when I played. Typically on TV you'll see penalties most frequently for not releasing the ball after being tackled, offsides, attempting to play the ball off your feet, high tackles, and entering rucks from the side

Once you've seen a few examples of these you can spot them quite easily in replays. Not releasing is quite an easy one to spot as a player normally runs into a tackle quite isolated, and will be holding onto the ball on the floor whilst the opposition are rightly trying to prize it from them. Aside from this, I have no idea how anyone spots these things in real time. Rugby referees have it hard in my opinion, especially at local level

[jimexotic]

Thanks man, appreciate it. JJ, JPR and Shane, who all share my surname, are the only guys I've ever really loved in rugby and I wasn't born when two of them were playing!

[mrpicton79]

Feb 17, 2023 19:41:40 GMT jimexotic said:

Penalties in rugby have always left me feeling a bit baffled. This is probably largely down to my ignorance to really learn about the game but also because I like my sport simple and fun, football and boxing, you know exactly where you are with them.

"Penalty" - crowd cheer

I never see anything that makes me understand why something was given, it's a really shit part of the game which alienates casuals to a degree and stops casuals getting into it. Sports with rules like that are never going to be massive. People whine about the offside rule being hard to understand but it's always been relatively black and white, even now, plus when you watch football you can very quickly understand it with replays and diagrams. Penalties in rugby, if you are watching you just have to go along with it rather than turn to your mate, or in my case my cat because none of my mates want to watch that rubbish, and go "what the fuck was that for?"

The rules are ridiculously ambiguous but the inconsistency of the officials is also a huge issue. They're typically keen to blow the whistle and talk to the players in a condescending manner, but then they'll change what constitutes a penalty midway through a game. Even broadcast commentators will often disagree about which way a decision should have gone. It's a mess and it's easy to see why rugby league got rid of scrums/rucks/mauls/lineouts.

[bale-droed]

Hi Pal,

Happy to oblige but a fair warning - it's a long story!

Headline - The regions are effectively bankrupt.

They blame it on the WRU for not funding them properly, the WRU blames it on the region's for over paying players - sounds simple but it's not.

There is a group of 38 players who have their contracts 'duel' funded by both the union and the region's. This was in part to help the regions match the wages top players were being offered in England/France and was brought in along with the 60 cap rule (which means players taking contracts outside of Wales only remain eligible for the national team if they have reached 60 caps). It was also introduced to guarantee the national side better access & more control over its prize players.

This has however meant that the region's are forced to play a large number of the season without their 'star players', for example I think Faletau is contractually limited to 12 regional games + internationals to limit his work load, which is great in theory however means that the region's have been forced to sign lots of 'cover players'. This is where issues come in, these players tend not to be quite up to the level required for the region's to be competitive in the URC but also eat up the wage bill.

Another issue that plays a part is that we don't really have an established system for academy players to develop. The premiership which acts as the top domestic league has too many teams to become fully profession but because of the structure of the WRU, the ameture clubs effectively have majority control and have vetoed every attempt to professionalise and integrate the semi-pro leagues with the regional academies.

A bit more background - the concept of regions initially was floored, we effectively saw it worked well in Ireland and copied it, asking fans who had spent decades enthralled in local rivalries to come together and support the same team. Originally there where 5 regions although one folded in under a year and the dragons were bought out by the WRU to save them from going under. It's genuinely accepted within Wales, and even by the gent who designed them, that the region's have been a failure.

Fast forward to 2020 and COVID hit...

The WRU offered the region's a lump sum of £20mill to keep them going BUT they would have to repay it with interest, while also slashing their funding.

It was a really shitty deal but the region's and little choice to accept.

Since then there has effectively been a tug of war between the regions and the WRU over how funding should look long term. We are about 18 months into it and there is still no agreent in place. The region's have actually gone through this season effectively on a monthly basis since nobody actually knows what the funding situation is.

Since nobody knows the funding situation, regions have been unable to offer new/extend player contracts, there is something in the region of 100 players out of contract from the four regions at the end of this season and understandably players are concerned about their futures and what position they find themselves in if the end the season contractors, or worse, contractless and injured.

That brings us up to about December last year, when the union annouced that a verbal deal had been reached regarding regional funding, and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

Until the details of it started coming out.

If the gossip it to believed it involves the four regions cutting their playing squad to 38, while also still limiting the games played by the Welsh internationals. It also involves most player contracts being reduced by 20-30% and a further percentage being 'preformance based bonuses'. Which sounds feasible until you realise the bonus are reliant on winning the league, which players argue is clearly unachievable with reduced squads and funding. There are even suggestions that there is a bonus for players from the 'top preforming union i.e. the one that makes it into the champions cup', which effectively means 75% of the players cannot achieve their quoted salery.

The talk of striking comes from two concerns.

The top international players are arguing that the union should remove the 60 cap limit if it is going to limit the region's to making offers that don't compete with Eng/France/Japan - from what I hear they are pushing for it to be reduced to 20/30 caps, if it can't be scrapped completely. Incidentally Warren Gatland has also suggested he would support that change.

This would allow the top earners to move abroad, which is both good for them but also good for the other regional players who would then be more likely to pick up the remaining contracts in Wales.

It is those regional players who I gather are pushing for strike action, they are the ones who may well end the year unemployed and they are the ones who are on Medicare contracts, which if reduced could massively affect their lovely hoods.

(Stolen from another forum but hopefully that explains some stuff for people who don’t quite understand)

[fiveattheback]

I've never really understood the point of rugby's 60 cap rule, surely you want your players competing at the highest level they can and with the best coaches/players possible to maximise their ability? Keeping them in Wales prevents that and also prevents younger players from coming through into the Welsh teams

It's not like keeping the stars leads to huge attendances at club level

[surge]

Increase quality of regions rugby, decrease chances of players being recalled to clubs and being injured, increase time spent together as an international squad.

I don't want to defend WRU but not entirely sure they deserve all the criticism they're getting at the moment. Club rugby couldn't survive as it was so WRU went for regions; fans/staff of clubs pushed for more regions than there should have been; regions (apart from Ospreys) never wanted to reach out into the community and thus started to fail; clubs demanded more money which took money away from regions...

Now lots saying WRU failed to look after grass routes which is a bit laughable or that WRU let regions down.

Of course, there is big chunk of criticism that WRU are deserving of as well.

[insertname]

Reading all of that it all makes me think of women's football to be honest, a game trying to pay players wages the game can't sustain. Except where women's football solve their problems by demanding more money from the men's game the WRU are on their own, there is no magic money tree to solve the problem of funding a sport where the top players are torn between the high risk of injury and commitments to two competing forces: domestic and international rugby.

It sounds like quite a grim picture at the moment. Seems like the most practical "fix" is to let the top players go and play elsewhere. It might not have a material effect on crowd numbers but it will probably hurt the club's ability to generate other revenue streams with no marketable players and no success on the pitch because they can't even compete with the Scottish teams let alone the Irish ones creating a spiralling race to the bottom.

[surge]

Not sure if anyone can find it but I'm pretty sure Gatland gave interview when leaving, regarding state of rugby in Cymru/Wales, and one of his conclusions was that current players needed to be put last in list of priorities.

Now this may be such poor description I have miss-described it, and certainty easier to say such a thing when you think time working with players is over, but think the point was that longer term game needed focus on getting each step on pyramid right rather than focusing on protecting today's cream of the crop.

Of course there is low confidence in WRU being able to get it right, high likelihood that regions and fans/staff and clubs and fans/staff repeat last 20 years by not wanting to budge from their position, thus doing nothing to strengthen the game, but at least we're having serious conversations now. Even if it's rotten that so many normal people are having to worry about their careers.

[talyfan]

surge

www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/warren-gatland-revealed-blueprint-welsh-25710236?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

[surge]

Always disappointing to lose to them lot but not as bad as I feared today.

Scrum: held our own. 2 penalties conceded from memory, at least 1 penalty won and not an area of weakness of the day.

Line-out: in the 10 minute spell which was going to decide the game, this point of the game didn't hold up.

Speed of ball: conceded turn-over battle before game started but won a few critical moments. Tomos Williams wanted to speed it up at crticial point in first half but no one went with him, Tomos Williams decided to slow it down multiple times when others wanted it quicker. Scrum-half bit of a weakness at the moment - 3 players who on a good day are still only 7/10 men.

Kicking game: not bad actually. We got to see last generation's best full-back against this generation's with England's shading it on basis that uses it as point of attack rather than purely defensive weapon, but we were able to minimise how much they used it as point of attack despite what Jiffy and co were saying.

Efficiency in opposition's 22: this is where we really lost it. We gave up a try, they gave up a try but otherwise we entered their 22 with intent 2-3 times and came away with nothing whereas they entered similar number and came away with 2 tries.

[allezlesrouges]

Italy looked strong against Ireland. Wooden spoon looking a real possibility