Cardiff RFC v Pontypool RFC – a classic example of the impact of senseless structural non-alignment at the coal face of Welsh club rugby…?

“We were very disappointed with Cardiff’s handling of the whole day and their preparation beforehand. I don’t know whether things were done – or not done – in a deliberate attempt to rile us, or whether it was just a lack of competence. But there were important issues of health and safety which seemed to have been ignored. It cannot be right that there was only one access point into and out of the stand and that only one person was selling tickets to a crowd of over 1,000 people. When we went to Llanelli in the round before, they were a shining example of good organisation and hospitality, but the experience at Cardiff was the total opposite – a complete shambles.” – Ben Jeffreys, CEO, Pontypool RFC (link)

This blog very much concentrates upon the big structural and systemic shortcomings that have developed in Welsh rugby’s pyramid since 1989-90 and the wider picture and perspective but, every now and again, a specific event happens which is useful in narrowly highlighting the negative impact of all this non-alignment in everyday practice.  Welsh rugby’s pyramidal problems are seldom about good and bad people.  They are nearly all about poor structures and systems, mostly pitting good people against good people.  Such is the futility of it all.

And one doesn’t get a better example of the narrow impact of this structural non-alignment than the shambolic hosting of the WRU National Cup 2nd round match between Cardiff RFC and Pontypool RFC on the evening of Saturday 18 February.  A 43-32 Pooler win, taking much of the Welsh rugby media by surprise, drowned out in the post-mortem over Cardiff RFC’s problems in even hosting the match.  A failure to well arrange a drinking session at a beer manufacturing facility, the impression left.  But structural incompetence, I suspect, rather than personal shenanigans, in failing to remotely deal with the consequences of blatant pyramidal non-alignment.  Having a professional stadium facility doesn’t of itself make anybody “professional”.

It sometimes feels like the structural shortcomings in Welsh rugby are an internal debating society within Pontypool RFC.  The intellectual nonconformists of the entire WRU pyramid.  Those bits of Welsh professional rugby that do work for the most part are mostly down to British Lion flanker Terry Cobner, Pooler captain between 1969-79, from his time at the WRU between 1996 and 2004.  If his call for 4 representative regions, 1 based in North Wales, and for Newco companies and universal central contracting had been listened to, much more of the WRU pyramid would now be healthy.  There have been few positives in any tier of the WRU pyramid in the 14 years since, the conversion of Neath/Swansea into the unexpected Ospreylia phenomenon apart.  The only positive of the last 14 years of resource concentration being it has not been as bad as the previous 13 years, at least in terms of feeding the Welsh Test team.

Perhaps it is inevitable that Pooler fans would now be leading this debate, especially with a ring fencing that came 12 months and a few critical injuries too soon for a Pooler rebuilding from scratch from 2012, now leaving us with too much time on our hands and, as a result of the dark days, with no clubhouse to distract and waylay us.  The one situation the WRU of the 1970s/1980s avoided at all cost, Pooler officials and fans with time on their hands!  Terry Vaux welcome on the WRU general committee.  To have “Pooler on the inside of the tent peeing out rather than on the outside peeing in“, I once had it memorably described to me by a long retired non-District A member of the then WRU general committee and who must remain anonymous.

Pontypool RFC, whilst certainly not alone, have been particularly badly hit by some very poor decisions made by others in Welsh rugby since the late-1980s.  Pooler certainly suffered from the ill-considered decision to instigate a full pyramidal club meritocracy in 1990 with the introduction of national leagues.  A new structure that was so good that it was abandoned in 2003 with the re-introduction of ring fencing, this time between “super” clubs/”regions” and clubs rather than between 1st and 2nd class clubs.

Failure within 13 years, in structural terms, counts as immediate.  The Wednesday matches from 1990-91 rendered meaningless by the all-important league matches on Saturday, a large section of grassroots club players/fans lost to the big “1st class” clubs for the midweek matches as they stopped coming for meaningless midweek “friendlies”.  It was lovely in particular to see so many from Pontypool United RFC at the Cardiff RFC v Pontypool RFC match, a brief glimpse again of Wednesday nights in the 1980s and where many 1st class clubs enjoyed a substantial midweek following from 2nd class clubs.  The inclination is still there in each direction, some Pooler fans going to the Pontypool United RFC v Talywain RFC match when the weather claimed Pooler’s match with Tata Steel RFC.

And it just got worse from there.  Relegated at the end of 1994-95, the worst year in rugby union’s history for any major club to be relegated on the eve of the August 1995 professionalism.  Promoted back in 2002-03, just as the “super” clubs/”regions” were being formed and the WRU Premiership was being downgraded.  And then the denouement of the conflict with the WRU in 2012, saved by the Jeffreys family.

So the burden seems to be upon Pontypool RFC.  North Walian rugby fans are dismissively told by some to “shut up and be grateful for RGC1404” every time they have the temerity to venture any opinion on rugby structures whatsoever and particularly about the regions game.  Welsh rugby needs them to shout louder, not to be intimidated.  Newport RFC fans are worn out digesting the impact of trying to be a city “super” club, when the first generation funding directors want out.  Llanelli RFC fans have had to transfer all their fans to the Scarlets region and sacrifice themselves, so short of regular fans is the region in such close geographical proximity with the Ospreys across the estuary at the Liberty Stadium.  They have no time to look/think beyond their constant struggle to retain “Yma o Hyd” at the professional level.

The Ospreys, both black and white, are comfortable in their own identity, content to leave the wider problems to others.  If the town of Bridgend and the Llynfi, Gary and Ogmore valleys have any complaints, they don’t shout them out.  The quest for Pro12 silverware usually consumes every minute of Ospreylia thinking time.  Pontypridd RFC fans devote all their time to suspiciously watching, like a hawk, the Thomas brothers at the Blues region and at Merthyr RFC.  Cardiff RFC/Blues region are so obsessed by the club heritage and fighting for possession/ownership of it between themselves and with the Athletic Club that there is no time for anything else.  Not even for running good rugby teams.

If Terry Cobner, once of Pontypool RFC, was arguably the “prime minister” of intended proper regionalism (including the actually implemented regions pathway), the need for Welsh rugby to efficiently resource concentrate and come together behind 4 club neutral representative teams whilst preserving and encouraging all that local tribalism at semi-pro club level, then Ben Jeffreys of Pontypool RFC might arguably be the best candidate for current “leader of the opposition”.  Margaret Thatcher and Jeremy Corbyn from the same political party, although I suspect neither Terry nor Ben will particularly appreciate this analogy!  But such is the intellectual dominance of Torfaen and Gwent’s eastern valley, on both sides of the real debate in Welsh rugby.  No conspiracy of silence or state of denial.

I have an awful lot of time for Ben Jeffreys, even though we advocate almost totally opposite solutions to the various structural non-alignments and dislocations in Welsh rugby’s pyramid.  We agree on 80%+ of issues, with probably nearer to 100% on what are the actual problems (excluding solutions).  He always asks the right questions.  He wishes to abolish the regionalism, I wish to abolish the pretence and evolve to actual and full representative regionalism.  Neither of us wish to continue the current fudge.

I can personally see no benefit whatsoever in Welsh rugby adopting the 1973 BARLA/RFL community board governance model from rugby league, the origins and history of rugby union are just too different to rugby league.  I don’t even think such a split between a professional and amateur game works well up there.  Rugby league was a sport founded and controlled by a handful of professional clubs, with little Test rugby.  The WRU, if nothing else, remains a union of 300+ clubs.  It would signal the end of the semi-pro club game, and interest below the “Team Wales” shop window would just dwindle further.

I might oppose a split, but the WRU badly needs 3 sub-boards covering the professional regions, the semi-pro clubs, and the grassroots clubs.  Not the completely pointless PRGB in isolation.  Albeit with key WRU executives and directors joining key invited stakeholders on all 3 sub-boards and all accountable to the main WRU board.  Geraint John should attend the grassroots sub-board, Ryan Jones the regions sub-board.  Nothing on this planet happens in isolation, without impacting others.  If the real damage to the WRU pyramid was done in 1990, 1995, and 2003, few would argue that the inconclusive conflict between the WRU and the region funding directors 2012-14 was anything but exacerbating.  Especially as all the key structural issues remained completely unresolved in the concluding further fudge.  The only minimal progress, an unsatisfactory form of marquee dual central contracts system that fails to control the wider wage structure and which is pivotal to successful central contracting.

Whilst our desired remedies differ, both Ben and I agree on many of the underlying structural problems.  Particularly commercial accountability and market research issues.  I fear nobody will do the desired if very complex pyramidal consumer demand modelling, due to a combination of fear over the findings and too large an invoice from PWC if they were to do it properly and thoroughly.

Pontypool RFC drew Cardiff RFC away in the WRU National Cup 2nd round, after a 19-11 win at a typically hospitable Llanelli RFC in the 1st round.  A big match for Pooler fans, but not a grudge or hostile match, something to really look forward to.  A number of titanic WRU Cup encounters between 1977 and 1988 in the olden days of John Billot’s Western Mail Championship and of the Whitbread Merit Table, but with the overwhelming primary aim of progressing to the next round rather than in any inter-club bragging rights.

A straightforward Saturday afternoon in Cardiff, unless the Blues region were required by Sky Sports for their Saturday afternoon primary rights televised slot.  That would then probably mean a Saturday evening match, after for many a pre-match perambulation around the local City Centre hostelries and ale houses.  Since the Blues region were playing Treviso at home that weekend, a very unlikely scenario one would think.  Sky Sports had not been interested in televising that one, nor S4C in their 7.35pm evening slot.  So far, so good.  A routine Saturday afternoon club away fixture.

But this is eastern Glamorgan, where even the façade of regionalism is not even “regionalism” as understood by any form of conventional inquiry.  Despite the data showing that regular Saturday afternoon crowds at the Blues region are lower than regular Friday evening and Saturday evening crowds, when the data is properly filtered (link), and consistent with empirical evidence that there are elements within the (Saturday afternoon otherwise occupied) Cardiff community club game that attend evening Blues matches (perhaps more as their local “big team”, rather than much if anything to do with “regionalism”), and there being no broadcaster requirement, the Blues region had already fixed their home regional match in the designated WRU National Cup slot and which presented a rather obvious clash between the Blues region and Cardiff RFC should the latter be drawn at home.

Pooler have never been a fussy club.  As things presently stand, without the enclosure of the rugby ground at Pontypool Park, you will get lovely scenery but you will also have a choice between an open terrace bank or a grandstand that the local teenage arsonists treat as their second home (enclosure of this facility cannot come quickly enough, a modern society very different from that which the Hanbury family knew in the early-1920s).

For me a far cry from entertaining clients at my firm’s corporate box in the Railway Stand of the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town in the 1990s, in an era when servicing the business community was practically unknown in Wales and (I think) the only corporate boxes at all were those installed at the Arms Park as a result of 1990.  If you want a corporate box at Pontypool Park, you will need to bring your own camper van or caravan and to park behind the posts.  Remember to also bring your salt n shake crisps and your bottles of Blue Nun, if you are used to canapés and champagne elsewhere.  But Pontypool Park and its rugby fans have affinity.  “Rugby with a soul“, as Owen Robins and many other valleys fans call it.

But the WRU competition rules are unambiguously clear, the 2nd round in 2016-17 was to be played on Saturday 18 February.  No discretion whatsoever for any home club, including “the greatest“, to play the fixture between Thursday night and Sunday night at a time and date of their own choosing.

Some of us take a very dim view of any region playing regularly on a Saturday afternoon in direct commercial competition with the WRU member clubs of the region, as South Wales is a rugby area noted for mass interest in the sport rather than for having a large overall population (link).  Not enough rugby fans for needless competition.  The Ulster province know how to do it on a Friday night, with very large crowds, and they have a larger population and more leeway, and leave Saturday afternoon to all their provincial branch clubs.  The Irish, like the Welsh, have also not discovered how the same rugby fan can be in two different places at the same time at 2.30pm on a Saturday afternoon.

The Blues region and Cardiff RFC were lucky that I am not the Pontypool RFC CEO.  I would have made the game take place on the required date, in any event.  Regional representation is the real price (consideration, in legal terms) paid for being a “region”.  If a region wants to be a Saturday afternoon commercial competitor club, we start with the other clubs and the schools each rendering a £25,000 invoice whenever their junior player is accepted into any regional academy at 15 years of age.

An additional region cost that will not be passed through to the WRU member clubs through their non-Test professional game subsidies.  A non-representative pathway would then start to work for the best schools and for the best club junior and mini-rugby sections, a rugby club and school PE Dept being financially rewarded each and every time an academy player is produced.  That payment then re-invested into further junior rugby development, an incentivised virtuous circle.  Representation is the real price of ring-fencing.  Regions.

Cardiff RFC were very lucky in this regard that Ben Jeffreys is the Pontypool RFC CEO, no regionalist.  At least for now.  Their good fortune, it should have been.  He is the very last person who would take a point over the causative needless fixture clash between the Blues region and Cardiff RFC.  Pooler would play any time or location on the Saturday or Sunday.  His only red line in the sand was the Friday night, due to player unavailability.

Clear breach of the WRU rules by Cardiff RFC, through the actions of the Blues region, would be waived by Pontypool RFC for the Sunday, but not for the Friday evening.  It soon became clear that the Blues region had decided that, if Cardiff RFC were drawn at home, the visiting club could just lump it and, despite the WRU competition rules, this match would be played on the Friday evening.  For whatever reason, maybe alternative hire of the 3G pitch, Sunday never appeared to be a serious alternative.

Once upon a time, that might have been the end of it.  The visiting club would have been shown disrespect, but probably forced to kowtow and like it or lump it with a weakened team.  But social media has changed rugby union, just as it has changed so many other walks of life.  No club has to be treated that discourteously, let alone one managed by a professional PR consultant.

Nowadays you can just place it all in the public domain, and another party who is so blatantly in the wrong has little option but to back down.  Such can be the power of social media.  Welcome to 2017.

There was little ill feeling towards the Cardiff RFC section over this, for we know they are not uniquely the only rugby club below the regions hostile to the idea of playing rugby on a Saturday afternoon.  They have to play second fiddle at the Athletic Club owned and Blues region operated Arms Park facility, with all three laying claim to the pre-2003 club rugby heritage that rightfully belongs to them in the WRU Premiership.

We all know the longstanding governance and managerial problems at the Blues region.  When Pontypridd RFC fans joke that “an empty taxi pulled up at Sardis Road and Dickie Dutch got out“, it is not really a personal attack upon Richard Holland.  Far from it, although he has personally done himself few favours by perceived pandering to the club heritage element.  It is just their light hearted way of conveying the point that the board is everything and the management nowhere.  No strategic input from successive CEOs “down there“, just robotic processing of orders from above and no matter how absurd.  Any Blues region CEO is never someone one can negotiate or deal with on the basis of his having any independent authority and/or strategic input.  Talk to the Chairman, if one talks at all.  Otherwise, one is just wasting oxygen.

I am frequently asked who I think has the worst job in Welsh rugby.  It’s certainly not Warren Gatland or Robert Howley.  It’s not Martyn Phillips or Mark Davies.  It’s not even Richard Holland.  The man with probably the worst job in Welsh rugby is Blues region “spin doctor” (i.e. media manager) Mike Brown.  This is the poor guy who really has to try and flog some life into the club heritage dead donkey at the Blues region level.  Perhaps not as hard as selling Zionism in Tehran, but not much easier with much of the region’s potential consumers and upon whose affinity the WRU subsidies are really predicated.

There was actually a bonus for me in all of this, enabling me as a neutral to watch Pontypridd RFC v Newport RFC at Sardis Road at 2.30pm.  A double header!  Catching up with Martyn Lewis, Chairman of the successful Pontypridd RFC junior and mini rugby section and always a man with a wealth of rugby knowledge.

An enjoyable match in itself, but also a chance to update on the progress of several ex-Pooler forwards.  Garin Harris at Newport RFC, Joe Popple at Pontypridd RFC, going head to head on the same side of the scrum.  Getting to briefly meet the legendary Bert Ole James (AKA the Ponty Dragon) (link), Welsh rugby’s most famous Pennsylvania born and bred fan.  Over from Scranton for a short visit with his children.  Rugby fans won’t travel from Pontypridd to Cardiff or from Ebbw Vale or Pontypool to Newport without affinity, but they will travel from Pennsylvania to Pontypridd with it.

Ponty cruising at 31-3, but then pulling off too many senior players and clinging on at the end 34-29.  Sadly not the only Welsh team that has ever made that mistake…

It was just as Martyn Lewis and I were about to head into Cardiff, with me checking Twitter for Cup result requests, that I noted that the Blues region had in the 2nd half overwhelmed a woeful Treviso and that all was not logistically going well ahead of the Pooler match.

Pontypridd RFC fans have long complained for many years about the queueing to get into the Arms Park for the away fixture against Cardiff RFC.  I had never grasped how woefully inadequate the “system” is when entertaining a club crowd above a couple of hundred.  One entrance, at the time I arrived, had just two (hard working) ladies on Saturday evening collecting the £12 admission prices.  A throughput that could only easily cope with crowds up to 200-300, not of many multiples of that number.  It is unfathomable why this recurring problem is never addressed by the stadium operator.

The delayed kick-off match still 10-15 minutes old before the last of the fans were even inside the ground.  Nobody was amused.  What would PWC have made of this operation?

But it got worse.  For the first time since I lived in South Africa in the mid-1990s, I adopted a position in an away rugby ground with safety concerns as a consideration.  That would have been an “interesting” dire emergency evacuation of the South Stand seating, especially of the wheelchairs.  I was far from alone in not liking what I was witnessing.

Perhaps Lt Colonel Williams of the WRU could provide the Blues region management with a copy of the latest Green Guide, as the stewards were blaming the WRU for everything?

And then, on the pitch, we ran into some of the pathway issues.  Rhun Williams, the rising star of North Walian rugby, parachuted in from the Blues region after only 5 previous Cardiff RFC matches this season.  If we don’t have a North Wales professional region, an inexcusable stain on the 2003 hybrid model, better I suppose that he plays for a South Wales region than follow others to Harlequins and Exeter.

The pack reinforced by Blues region hooker Ethan Lewis, another product of the phenomenal Rhondda Schools Rugby initiative (link), a region player making only his 2nd appearance for Cardiff RFC this season.  He battled to the very end, scoring a try near the final whistle.  That’s cultural, but “never say die” Treorchy RFC alas.  The stand out player for Cardiff RFC probably being outside-half Gareth Thompson, funnily enough playing his 18th match of the season.

And then the icing on the cake.  I have a very positive view of Craig Evans, arguably the rising star of Welsh rugby refereeing.  He always remains calm and has the patience of a saint.  Coolness personified.  He could go far.  In his shoes, as the match was slipping away from Cardiff RFC, I would not have tolerated a member of the Cardiff RFC team management patrolling the touchline screaming alleged Pooler on field offences at him.  If refereeing, I would probably have drop kicked the miscreant over the West Stand boxes and straight into the River Taff.  So perhaps better that Craig Evans was the referee.

I trust Craig Evans covered that misbehaviour in his match report.  It is a growing problem in Welsh club rugby.  That was the one area, for me, where the Cardiff RFC section let themselves down.  I can excuse much of the rest, although it leaves a poor impression of the operation of the Arms Park, but not that.  The rest of the chaos can mostly be traced back to the structural mess and the unhappy disjointed demarcations in East Glamorgan regional rugby between the professional region and the semi-pro Cardiff RFC.  The outcome of the 2003 “super” club fudge instead of the required representative rugby that has propelled other rugby nations forward.

I am sure that things will be done far more professionally by Cross Keys RFC in the quarter-final this Saturday afternoon down at Pandy Park.  It will have to be, with none of the Arms Park problems, if they want to secure the Dragons v Blues regions Pro12 fixture on 6 May.  Notwithstanding the match being televised by S4C, there will no doubt be a bumper crowd at Pandy Park for this eagerly awaited Gwent derby.