Peter Jackson: Regions feel the love at last from Team Wales
The old regime, chaired by David Pickering and run by Roger Lewis, has been toppled, more a case of the revenge of the small clubs than a palace revolution.
Pickering has gone and Lewis is going because too many of the clubs they were paid to serve decided they had been neglected for too long.
The Pickering-Lewis duopoly gave them the impression that Team Wales was what mattered and if other areas of the game suffered as a consequence, well that was too bad. Team Wales came first and last with Pickering and his star-struck chief executive.
They lengthened the fixture list, squeezing so many internationals into a season that it was as if Team Wales were competing for customers against the very regions from whom they hired the players. In four seasons, Wales played 52 matches – 13 per season, seven in Cardiff.
In a classic case of ‘never-mind-the-quality, feel-the-width’, they insulted the fans and demeaned the international cap by elevating two fixtures against the Barbarians to Test status. The pack-‘em-in policy back-fired horribly over an out-of-window match against the Wallabies in December 2012.
Wales lost it, dropped out of the top eight on the official rankings and, as a direct of consequence, ended up stuck in the nightmarish World Cup pool with England and Australia. And so the Union’s attempt to make the regions kow-tow to their demands went on. According to Lewis in the WRU annual report for 2012, “our talks with the regions are very positive. I am confident that we can arrive at an agreed way forward very soon”.
Before the end of that season, Blues chair- man Peter Thomas said at Cardiff Arms Park of the WRU hierarchy next door at the Millennium Stadium: “I sum it up with the words power, divide, conquer, wipe out. That is the agenda for certain people across the way.”
Davies, then in the same war zone as chief executive of the Dragons, looked at the WRU’s five-year rolling strategic plan and saw that “there was not a single line on regional rugby”.
So much for Lewis’ positive talks. In such a hostile environment, it was no wonder the regions’ double header last year fell flat with barely 30,000 there to witness the matches. Last weekend the same double header drew a crowd of 52,762, the second biggest anywhere in Britain behind Arsenal-Chelsea.
Wales, whose club game once had a box- office appeal second to none, has rediscovered its long lost support. In acknowledging a ‘fantastic’ occasion, Davies made a point of thanking the fans, a nice touch from a Union not noted in recent times for such humility.
Before the match, he and Mark Davies, chief executive of the regions’ Pro Rugby Wales, had met members of the Joint Supporters Group represented the Blues, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets. An exhaustive review of the Swalec League system has also been completed. Lines of communication are opening all over the place.
The regions are beginning to feel the love. “There was a great deal of negativity around the game this time last year when we were effectively in lock-down,” says Mark Davies. “Under Mr Pickering and Mr Lewis it appeared that anything which was not directly related to Team Wales was seen as competing against Team Wales whether it was the regional, club or community game. That is no longer the case.
“Under Gareth Davies’ chairmanship, we are starting to operate as a united Union. This time round, the WRU and the regions worked together in a positive partnership.
“The joined-up thinking began well before the Six Nations. Weekly meetings to make sure every angle was covered ensured no shortage of joined-up messages. This shows what can be done when we are united and working as a partnership. All we want to talk about now is unity and look forward, not back.”
Their challenge for next year’s double-header will be to go the whole hogg and fill the Millennium Stadium to its 74,500 capacity.
