Peter Jackson: Forgotten Byrne can join select Welsh club
If the favourites win in Dublin next Saturday and Clermont Auvergne claim their kingdom, Lee Byrne will be only the sixth Welshman to hold Europe’s ultimate club prize since the tournament began almost 20 years ago.
How ironic that he should be in sight of the summit with the No. 1 team in France at a time when he has become something of a forgotten man in Wales, a prophet without some honour in his homeland since being superseded by the phenomenal Leigh Halfpenny.
Wales have had no trouble leaving him out of all 22 Tests since they last picked him, for the last of the World Cup punchbag matches, Fiji in Hamilton almost 20 months ago. When the Lions set off on their last tour, to South Africa four years ago, Byrne began the Test series as the undisputed full-back, the best in Britain and Ireland.
This time he had fallen so far down the pecking order that he was never going to make it even when they decided to take an extra full-back. Byrne took his place some way behind the chosen trio, Halfpenny, Stuart Hogg and the man who displaced the former Osprey against the Springboks in 2009, Rob Kearney. The English duo of Alex Goode and Mike Brown would have pushed Byrne even further down the rankings.
At coming up 33, Clermont’s formidable Welshman has no time to waste which would make his European success all the sweeter assuming the premier club team in France pulls rank on the second premier club team from the same Top 14 rankings, Toulon.
In Welsh terms, Byrne is expected to be the last man left standing, at least in the starting line-up in Dublin next Saturday given that his compatriot, Gethin Jenkins, has spent almost the entire season at Toulon playing second fiddle to the English loosehead, Andrew Sheridan.
The final, the fourth all-French affair, is the 17th since Cardiff lost to Toulouse after extra-time in the first, at the Arms Park in 1996. No Welsh team has appeared in any subsequent final and this season no Welsh team got as far as the quarter-finals.
Ieuan Evans and Richard Webster were the first Welsh winners, for Bath when they survived the hairiest of finales to scrape home by a single point against Brive in Bordeaux 15 years ago.
Allan Bateman followed suit for Northampton in their surprising defeat of favourites Munster at Twickenham in 2000. Rob Howley famously stole the trophy from under Toulouse noses at the same venue in 2004, his grand larceny at the expense of a dithering Clement Poitrenaud pocketing the title for Wasps against superior opponents just as the match was about to go into extra time.
When Toulouse reclaimed their throne against Stade Francais at Murrayfield the following year, Gareth Thomas was on the left wing. No Welsh player has played in a winning final since.
Five winners in 17 years is a pitiful return for a country which has won three Grand Slams in the last eight. The prospect of a Welsh team reaching the final appears to be more remote than ever.
None of the three regional contenders survived the pool stage this season. The recession within the Welsh game raises the grim scenario that their teams are merely making up the numbers along with the Scots and Italians.
With their best players being picked off by French and English employers, it is difficult to see how Wales, for all their traditional ingenuity, can go on unearthing new talent to offset the ever-widening money problem.
At a time when the regions have to bust a gut to tighten their belts as never before, the nouveaux riches in France can afford to pay salaries on such a scale that not even the Irish can compete, never mind the poverty-stricken Welsh.
Racing Metro’s £625,000-a-year behind Jonny Sexton’s move from Leinster is the most striking example. The same club’s £400,000-a-year for Jamie Roberts and a similar deal for Danny Lydiate is another reason why the Blues will be among the also-rans in the Heineken Cup again next season and why the Dragons will continue to be consigned to the secondary Amlin Cup.
