Pontypridd v Merthyr – yet more troubling WRU pyramidal questions in East Glamorgan?

I headed to the “House of Pain” (AKA Sardis Road) on Saturday afternoon.

I could not help myself.  Something was telling me that there would be a decent crowd and atmosphere, a telling reminder and fleeting taste of an illustrious club past, the wasted club present and a possible brighter club future, although I never expected to be part of an extraordinary 4,800 crowd for a domestic semi-pro game under the current post-2003 deformed WRU pyramid.

And it was not an occasion because of any of the silly artificial media fuelled antagonism over the attending “Thomas brothers” (Peter being the “benefactor” but minority shareholder at the Blues/Gleision “region“, brother Stan being the “benefactor” aiding the current rise of his home town Merthyr RFC) and Pontypridd RFC.  In the coming seasons these will be the two leading clubs in the East Glamorgan valleys, a cut above the rest before the ring fencing.  The Merthyr team received a warm welcome as they entered the field of play.  There was obviously no guard, this being rugby, for Stan Thomas’s parked Bentley but plenty of “I’d like one of those“.  There was lots of good natured banter between the fans, Merthyr coach and ex-Pontypridd RFC player Lee Jarvis setting the tone earlier in the week with several tweets including this classic exchange (alluding to Andy Powell’s legendary golf buggy trip from the WRU base at the Vale resort to Cardiff West services) with his former Pontypridd RFC team mate Owen Robins:

This was old school rugby, one for the purists, the monsoon conditions acting as a leveller across the park and and more reminiscent of a match from the 1960s.  The 2015 World Cup of “SANZAR space and speed” giving way to Wilson Whineray’s 1963 All Blacks slugging it out in puddles at the bottom of rucks.  You know it’s wet when the referee, and not just the home side, changes his jersey at half time.  In an era when SANZAR are perfecting “the aerobic challenge“, these players had to overcome the inability in such conditions to catch or sprint, at times even to pass the bar of soap.  And it was an enthralling 80 minutes.

Merthyr scored the only try of the match, inevitably from a driving maul.  Pontypridd won the match 6-5, former Welsh international Ceri Sweeney successful with 2 of his 3 penalty kick attempts.  Merthyr missed their, admittedly mostly more difficult in the testing conditions, kicks.  If Dean Gunter had kicked his late penalty, nobody would have complained with a reversed result.  Pontypridd progress to the semi-finals, but Welsh club rugby was the real winner on Saturday.

As for Merthyr, it is good to see them on the rise.  They have a team, and especially a pack, that will prove a challenge for all Principality Premiership clubs in 2016-17.  I have seen them well and truly take it to the Pontypool and the Pontypridd packs this season, neither club renowned for willingly taking a backwards step in that department.  Merthyr were founded in 1876 and were a founder member of the WRU in 1881, before the town became the one major valleys town that succumbed to the charms of soccer and the rugby club never attained their logical place amongst the 1st class clubs.

Without “the Ironmen” in the Merit Table, the 1st class club distribution in East Glamorgan (Cardiff, Glamorgan Wanderers, Penarth, Bridgend, South Wales Police, Maesteg, Pontypridd) became skewed and uneven and the cause of much of the post-2004 strife in the region when Ospreylia absorbed the Bridgend half of the Celtic Warriors franchise.  And the reasoning behind placing the Bridgend half of the Warriors in Ospreylia was to strengthen that half of the split West region (itself divided at the expense of the disenfranchised North region).

For a WRU South/East Glamorgan region, with thriving Premiership clubs in Cardiff, Bridgend, Pontypridd and Merthyr, would have avoided the external problem of the Cardiff v Pontypridd indifference.  The logical WRU South/East Glamorgan region would not unhelpfully be Cardiff RFC centric and, if the region was initially undesirably based on Cardiff RFC, there would just be the practical issues involved in addressing the internal problems such as severing and hiving off Cardiff RFC and the Athletic Club from this business/company, eliminating the dreaded heritage shares and then the region re-branding inclusively and club neutrally.

As for Pontypridd RFC, now deprived of the British + Irish Cup, it was great to see a large crowd there.  I have fond memories of one childhood match in January 1990, when Pontypool were sliding inexorably towards defeat until a piece of skulduggery saw a profusely bleeding British Lions prop Staff Jones get sent off for retaliation and an incensed 14 man Pooler storm away to win by nearly 20 points.  The last days of the Pooler glory days, before the decline towards 1994-95 relegation and subsequent near oblivion before the rise from the ashes under Peter and Ben Jeffreys.  Upon arrival the rain and pitch rather worryingly reminded me more of another trip in January 1988, that Pontypridd v Pontypool match in the second Pooler “glory season” being called off shortly before kick-off.  Waterlogged.  Yes, Pontypridd are also a great club.

As for Sardis Road itself, the sort of old style Welsh rugby venue that most English rugby players hate coming to with an absolute passion.  Remember Northampton last season, losing pre-season to the Dragons at old Eugene Cross Park?  “The Chief“, once of Pontypridd now of Merthyr, smashing Andy Robinson backwards encapsulates the image of Sardis Road east of the Severn.  All talk of sale and moving to a smaller venue should cease.  Admittedly corporate boxes are needed behind the Rhondda end terracing, but surely Rhondda Cynon Taff Council could help with funding that?

It doesn’t look like they have recently spent much money on Pontypridd itself, such is the tired demeanour of the town centre.  And, after all, Swansea Council and Carmarthen Council have effectively gifted the Ospreys and the Scarlets state of the art new 21st century bowl stadia.  Whenever the region fears being “out aerobically challenged” on the artificial pitch in Cardiff by an even more mobile away team, then the South region franchise should play the fixture at Sardis Road and grind them down in the mud, rain, mist and intimidatory valleys atmosphere.

So what does the 4,800 crowd tell us about the current state of the WRU South franchise region in East Glamorgan?  Much, and little of it reassuring.  It “adds fuel to the fire“, to quote former Pontypridd, Cardiff and Blues/Gleision stalwart Martyn Williams (Twitter – @martynewilliams) on Sunday night’s BBC Scrum V.

According to respected leading Welsh rugby journalist Andy Howell (Twitter – @andyhowellsport) of WalesOnline/the Western Mail, these were the last annual Pro 12 club attendances for the dying club meritocracy in the professional game, before the move to inclusive representative regions that was senselessly diverted into unwanted/unviable coastal “super” clubs.  7,000 for Cardiff and 5,880 for Pontypridd, ignoring Caerphilly and (also the logically WRU South region) Bridgend.

The top of the WRU pyramid, below “Team Wales” and at the devolved level (governance excepted) is the professional team of the “region“/”pretend region“/”super” club/hybrid/whatever (please delete, as per your preference).  5,258 was the official attendance versus Treviso on Friday evening, inclusive of all season ticket holders and corporate freebies handed out whether used or not.  The crowd was 5,017 a week earlier, for the visit of Munster.  These official crowds, let alone the crowds in actual attendance, do not look good either in comparison with Saturday’s semi-pro club match or the separate (let alone combined) 2002-03 figures for Cardiff RFC and Pontypridd RFC.

The next tier of the WRU pyramid is a new development.  The regional “A” teams, or “super” club hybrid “A” teams called Premiership Selects (for the British + Irish Cup) to disguise their contentious nature such is the structural/systemic chaos.  The website of the Blues/Gleision says 664 fans watched the “A” team match against Nottingham on 14 November 2015 and 850 fans watched London Welsh on 16 January 2016.  The attendance for the Sunday match against the Cornish Pirates on 13 December 2015 is not listed at all, which is never a good indicator of a healthy crowd.  So collectively less than half that watched the single Pontypridd v Merthyr match in the tier below (or 2 tiers below in the case of Merthyr, if one wants to be pedantic).  We do know that the 4 such development teams lost 18 of their 24 matches, in front of very poor crowds, and without any of them threatening to trouble the quarter-final stage.  Progress, or maybe not.  Compare with Ireland, where the representative “A” teams of the representative provinces naturally flow without demur from clubs or fans.

Now, however you dress it up, a Sardis Road crowd of 400 less (and the suspicion is that there was far more than 400 unused tickets in the 5,258 region crowd, so probably larger) than the pro region 2 tiers above and 4,000 more than the Premiership Select 1 tier above means something is terribly wrong in the WRU pyramid.  Consumers will not have an unwanted product shoved down their throats, however cheap it is and in any walk of life.  And the April Fool’s Day truce in 2003 was nothing if not producer driven by several historic clubs to the detriment of the wider Welsh rugby consumer.

The “super” clubs will not thrive, in the era of Bruce Craig/Mourad Boudjellal/Johan Rupert, on paltry 5,000 crowds and an annual cheap Principality Stadium post-6 Nations trial “event” marketed as “Judgement Day” (link).  SKY are not going to pay anywhere near £50 million to televise the Pro 12 status quo.  They currently pay £5 million, and tellingly couldn’t even be bothered (unlike with their other match on Saturday, Connacht v Leinster) to put the brief video highlights of the Ospreys v Scarlets derby on their SKY Sports website for over 24 hours.  And an official attendance at the Liberty of 12,051, following 14,568 at the corresponding fixture at Parc y Scarlets, and notwithstanding the Saturday afternoon kick off and clash with the semi-pro/community game depriving them of fans, must have come as a terrible disappointment to the Ospreys board of directors.

Nobody ever “thinks big” in Northern Hemisphere rugby, but especially in Wales.  It is usually a battle for supremacy, between inertia and procrastination.  The Blues/Gleision are a microcosm of that problem.  The old Arms Park was/is of no use to anybody, other than as an investment opportunity within the terms of the Bute covenants.  The Blues/Gleision should have long since taken a very long lease on it.  That would have generated income for Cardiff RFC to fund their semi-pro relocation and secure their existence, and given the Blues/Gleision their long leasehold asset.  Then sub-leased to the WRU for conference facilities, adding a hotel if that was permissible.  That would have created a revenue stream for the region and the union, as well as alignment and goodwill.  Maybe even close “Glanmor’s Gap” at the overhanging Principality Stadium, and prove to the English/French that one Celtic nation can actually finish a 4 sided Test stadium.

If the aim was to successfully move to Leckwith, and there are obvious commercial non-match day limitations for any rugby business as the ground sharing tenant of the owner, at least brand detoxify and remove the “Cardiff” and go inclusive of the region.  There was and is no shortage of rugby fans in East Glamorgan, even if the Cardiff RFC brand was/is never going to attract many of them.  The better option probably would have been a new ground development by the region, to maximise non-match day income.  Wasn’t the old Bosch site in Miskin sold for a ridiculously low price like £7 million, with excellent road connections for the wider region and with the possibility of a new stadium having its own railway station 15 mins from Cardiff Central?  That’s the vision one would expect, especially if they were not restricted by senseless archaic club governance, from a Blues/Gleision board full of property developers in their main business life.

But, above all else, Pontypridd v Merthyr was a reminder of what the Principality Premiership should be “week in, week out”.  With four inclusive representative regions, covering all of Wales, and with regional “A” teams tasked with development, the historic rivalries and tribalism should be funnelled into the 16 clubs covering this old “Merit Table” tier of rugby and to the betterment of all tiers of the WRU pyramid.  And 16 independent clubs exclusively tasked with winning their league, not primarily developing talent for the main professional rugby half of the business.  And the crowds will soon return to this badly neglected tier of the WRU pyramid.

A dose of rugby sense, common sense, commercial sense?  Maybe not, this is Welsh rugby after all.  But always remember what we should have constructed in 1995 and could construct on a blank piece of paper (link)….