The eastern Glamorgan “postcodes” of Clive Jones – finally kick starting alignment at the troubled Blues region?

“Due to the ongoing financial challenges the business faces, we must put all our efforts into developing from within if we want to be competitive in the future. This fits into the Welsh Rugby Union’s strategy and there will be further investment into our realigned academy system to ensure we maximise the potential from within. We see Clive as a key component to the new direction we intend to take. Through Pontypridd, Rhondda Schools and Coleg y Cymoedd, he has an excellent track-record of both identifying and developing talent, and putting the right structures in place. We have nearly one million people living within the region and the rugby tradition here, from the valleys to the Vale is second to none. Clive’s role will be to create a development strategy that harnesses this talent in partnership with the Premiership clubs.” – Richard Holland, Chief Executive, Cardiff Blues (link)

“My role is to create a framework for this region that best fits its geography and history – both traditional and social – to enable the undoubted talent here to be maximised. Our region has two distinct areas in terms of geography. There is a mountainous area to the north – the Beacons and Valleys – and a flatter, coastal area to the south – Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. These two ‘provinces’ (north and south) have distinct characteristics and, though having an inter-dependent history, are each unique. They are made up of seven natural districts, again each having strong identities. This is the region and it is upon these natural and historical entities we must build our framework. Rugby in this region has always been fiercely tribal and we need to embrace and encourage that, both between our districts and our two provinces. I am a firm believer in producing players by design, not chance, and our unique composition as a region lends itself to it perfectly. This is the Blues region – seven Districts, two Provinces, one Region. We will build on these districts and empower these provinces with a re-working of our academy system to give more players opportunity and focus our effort and resources, in partnership with our Premiership Clubs, on the 18-22 year old bracket. Through this we can align the region and maximise the potential we all know lies within its boundaries.” – Clive Jones, Director of Development, Cardiff Blues (link)

One of the great frustrations of the Welsh regional rugby era is constantly having to pull apart and criticise obvious and basic blunders being regularly made by one of the great clubs of Northern Hemisphere (not just Welsh) rugby.  I refer, of course, to Cardiff RFC.

But in terms of highlighting the absurdity of trying to impose a “super” club ethos upon a regional rugby model, they are simply the gift that just keeps on giving.  In fairness to a number of key individuals within the Blues, they are heavily trapped within their own unfit for purpose club governance and the decisions of others.

I suspect any further gifts (with speculation mounting over the future of head coach Danny Wilson), at least in relation to the pathway, are coming to an end with the appointment of Clive Jones as director of development at the troubled region.

In terms of this blog, I have already looked at Blues region specific problems in terms of the bumper crowd for the Pontypridd RFC v Merthyr RFC 2015-16 WRU Cup quarter-final (link), the regional rugby absurdity of the CF10 Rugby Trust (link), the always troublesome annual Blues accounts (link), whether the District C clubs/pathway should be moved to the Dragons (link), my book review of Lynn Howell’s “Despite the Knockbacks” (link), the unwanted/unloved embryonic regional ‘A’ team (link), and the botched hosting of the Cardiff RFC v Pontypool RFC WRU Cup club match (link).

It is not just a tragedy for them, but for the wider sleeping regional giant of eastern Glamorgan and southern Powys.  The internal governance is archaic, even if they were still a club rather than a region, the mind-set all wrong for 21st century Welsh professional rugby.

All that is keeping the business afloat, rather than the Chairman’s undoubted benevolence, is that the Athletic club owns prime city centre land from the Bute estate and this is a future income stream worth many stakeholders fighting over.  Sad, but true.

The sooner there is severance between Cardiff RFC/the Athletic Club and the professional regional game and its funders, the better.  Long lease landlord = fine. Shareholder = no.

“I think Welsh regional rugby should be three regions and Cardiff RFC“, said nobody.  Ever.  And they never will.

If you favour aligned and unifying regional rugby, you won’t want any historic club identity inside the model and fouling it all up (unless a region is perfectly aligned with a historic “1st class” club monopoly catchment area, such as the current case with the Scarlets – there is a separate issue there, whether separate regions in Swansea and Llanelli are long-term sustainable at the expense of North Wales income).

And for the vociferous tiny minority obsessed with Cardiff RFC as a professional club, with or without an unearned by representation monopoly geographic player development pathway, they clearly all don’t want regional rugby and the dreaded “representative” word full stop.

Given the painfully tortuous and inefficient way of creating regional rugby in Wales in 2003, trying to grow regions out of historic clubs rather than moving existing and/or new private investors into severed new entities, there was always the likelihood of a mess to some degree in some regions.

Swansea RFC and Neath RFC realised their own fan bases, let alone wider catchment area fans, would never converge around the identity of either club.  Hence the successful birth of Ospreylia, now complete with the regional ownership of the Bridgend Ravens.  New stadium, the Ospreys symbol from Swansea RFC, the black kit from Neath RFC.

Newport RFC “acquired” control of Gwent, but it ended-up a “mish mash” as the Newport RFC identity was increasingly diluted as it became increasingly apparent to their funding directors that they had taken a wrong turn but they could never quite bring themselves to take the risk of dropping Newport RFC and let that semi-pro club exclusively reclaim its identity (including the famous October 1963 win over Wilson Whineray’s strong All Blacks, with Kiwi rugby legends such as Colin Meads, Kel Tremain, Brian Lochore, and Don Clarke on the Rodney Parade pitch that day).

Events in recent months have shown just how wrong a turning was taken by the Gwent region from 2003, although in playing terms it will be a long road from a low base and head coach Bernard Jackman will require patience from all stakeholders.

Llanelli RFC boxed clever in 2003.  I never get any thanks for repeatedly pointing this out, although I get plenty of abuse for suggesting there is a rather obvious duplication within that Port Talbot-Neath-Llanelli triangle!

As long as they could avoid an amalgamation with Swansea RFC, which they did, Llanelli RFC could transpose their club heritage upon the regional identity of their own wider Dyfed region (if you don’t like me using “Dyfed”, to collectively conveniently and succinctly describe the three pathway counties of Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire/Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, please address your complaints to the current Lord Lieutenant of Dyfed (link)(link) or to the Dyfed-Powys police (link)).

Their post-2003 regional catchment area was perfectly aligned with their historic catchment area as the only so-called “1st class” club west of the River Loughor.  And as they were already the regional club for this exact same catchment area, they simply had to draw a line through “al club” to convert from pre-existing regional club to new region.

The club nickname, the Scarlets, was used for the Dyfed region brand and Llanelli itself was dropped from it in 2008.  Llanelli is now reserved exclusively for the subsidiary town semi-pro feeder club.  Anybody unhappy with this transposing of identity only has a short drive from Parc y Scarlets to the Liberty Stadium, not that I have come across much regional alienation towards the Scarlets amongst the Dyfed rugby fraternity.

Cardiff RFC in 2003-04 were in a similar position, having helped impose a five region model upon a David Moffett with only enough WRU resources to barely help fund four regions, and they secured their traditional District B catchment area of Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.

I have never received a strong or convincing counter to the argument that Cardiff RFC and Llanelli RFC only argued for a five region model in 2003 to ensure they both got stand alone status and safe in the knowledge that the backing of Peter Thomas and Huw Evans would ensure they weren’t the inevitable casualty on barely enough WRU funding for four regions at most.

Certainly, when the Celtic Warriors cracked first in 2004, undoubtedly the bookies favourites to be the superfluous unaffordable culled fifth region from when Pontypridd RFC went under and Tony Brown re-engaged with the Dragons, the screaming from the roof tops in 2003 that Welsh rugby couldn’t survive without a five region model was replaced by a deathly silence from the same quarters.  And then cheques of £312,500 from each region to divvy up the strong Celtic Warriors squad amongst themselves.

And, most importantly, even more than securing the Celtic Warriors place in the 2004-05 Heineken Cup, the Blues could not resist acquiring the District C (“the Pontypridd half”) of the Warriors region and pathway.  For very obvious reasons, given the strength of rugby across this area.  If they wanted to remain “Cardiff”, the Blues had to insist that Ospreylia acquire the lot or that all of District C was allocated to the Dragons (not just the six District C clubs of the Rhymney Valley allocated to the Dragons in 2003).

And this is where Clive Jones enters this blog (link), in 2004 and long before his six year stint in charge at Coleg y Cymoedd, where 34 age grade internationals were produced in that period and including a number that have gone on to play for the Blues and Wales, and long before his recent appointment to help clear up the mess at the Blues.

The regional academies have long been a very sensitive subject to raise in many Welsh rugby clubs, a widespread perception that too many players are being sucked out of the club youth game and into them without a proper trap door to relegate those that are not still progressing within the regions and to push upwards later developers.  Reinforced by too much perceived emphasis on young player conditioning, at the expense of maintaining the development of their basic rugby skills.

And all rounded off by an unease over the numbers lost from the community game when players do not make the grade in the performance game, and turn their backs on the game altogether and walk away.

The arrival of Clive Jones marks a significant move forwards in terms of alignment at the troubled region.

“They will have to brand themselves only as the Blues if they are serious about reinventing the region. There is a long tradition of hostility to Cardiff in this part of the world and so the new dawn must be sold and marketed as the Blues. Let me say this. There’s no doubt that 99 per cent of Valleys people can be won over by the Blues if they can see proof that there is a genuine, paternalistic and altruistic attempt to get them on board. But there is so much that needs to be done, there are huge cost implications and there is of course a need for someone to be willing to finance it.”

This outstanding advice was given in 2004, from a moderate well aware from where “the Blues” was derived, but openly saying that it would be possible for the Blues to work with that identity and brand provided the divisive “Cardiff” was quickly ditched.

That being so, and this being Welsh rugby, the advice obviously went unacted upon.

This omission has cost the funding directors at the Blues, particularly Chairman Peter Thomas, a sum of personal money at a multiplier level out of all proportion to the re-branding cost in 2004.  The team has slowly declined, in sorry alignment with the profit & loss account.  A rare case of perfect alignment in Welsh regional rugby.

As a young Pontypool RFC fan, I first came across Clive Jones in the traumatic 1986-87 season and where he had appeared for Pooler on permit from Treorchy RFC in the immediate aftermath of the ridiculous 11 month ban handed out to David Bishop.

Clive’s older brother Chris, in recent years the driving force behind the phenomenally successful and Dewar Shield dominating Rhondda Schools Rugby programme, was in those years (before he met God in a police cell in Brecon) more notoriously known for having twice been banned sine die by the WRU whilst playing for Treorchy RFC.

The WRU had been trying to “clean up” the game in the 1980s, following on from the Paul Ringer match at Twickenham in 1980.  Test players were banned from international selection for the rest of the season just for being sent off in a club match, under the law of unintended (if foreseeable) consequences which incentivised other players to have a pop at them and which robbed Wales of Rob Norster for the 1986 Six Nations.

It worked, in terms of the stated objective.  The problem was, by the time that Martin Johnson was arriving in Cardiff for Six Nations matches in the 1990s, I feared for half the Welsh forwards achieving physical scrum, ruck and maul parity against Mr Johnson’s grandmother let alone him.  Rugby will always be a physical encounter, and “forwards win matches and backs decide by how much” is usually not that far from the reality.

By the early 1990s, Wales were regularly getting beaten up and not just beaten.  A mass exodus to rugby league from 1988, followed by Six Nations Wooden Spoons.  Wales not consistently back to their relative 1988 level until around 2004, nearly a full decade after the exodus to the M62 was finally ended by the end of shamateurism.

If Pontypridd RFC were in the doldrums for much of the 1980s, following the break-up of the great Tommy David/Bob Penberthy side of the late-1970s, it was Clive Jones that led the coaching renaissance at the end of that decade before also coaching Treorchy RFC in their dream years of the early-1990s.  Teams based on fitness and fast ruck ball.

He returned to Pontypridd RFC as director of rugby in 2001, and then became head of player development for the newly created ill-fated Celtic Warriors in 2003, before subsequently establishing his unrivalled age grade player development reputation.

The gradual elite tier contraction from 18 “1st class” clubs in 1989-90 to 4 regions by 2004-05 left Welsh rugby with another non-alignment that few want to openly acknowledge let alone openly discuss.

Whereas Llanelli RFC and Neath RFC in particular had a good pedigree in player development, which was likely to serve the Scarlets and the Ospreys well in the years ahead, and indeed it has, Cardiff RFC and Newport RFC (despite the occasional outstanding Test player coming through their age grade set-ups) had tended for decades to follow a different model based more on their ability to attract already initially developed players from other Gwent and Glamorgan clubs and particularly from Bridgend RFC, Pontypridd RFC, Ebbw Vale RFC, Newbridge RFC and Pontypool RFC.

So when we fast forward 13 years to 2017, for some of us it comes as no surprise whatsoever that the WRU views the Scarlets and the Ospreys as being well ahead in player development terms.  That this would be the case was entirely predictable, some would even argue inevitable, when the Celtic Warriors folded.

Head coaches at the Arms Park can no longer rely upon the type of marquee import that has characterised the Blues in the past.  The BT “money pit” in England, with some club funders still prepared to suffer in addition big financial losses on their hobby, the inflationary conflict over rugby TV rights between Canal+ and beIN in France, and the fatigue effect of two decades of accumulated losses for Chairman Peter Thomas, have priced the Blues out of this player market in ex-SANZAAR superstars.

The pre-arrival offloading to London Irish RFC of former Springbok Franco van der Merve feels like a watershed moment, the end of an era.  And good riddance to that era.

Taufaʻao Filise and Nick Williams are in the twilight of their careers, neither remotely able to play anywhere near 80 minutes.  George Earle was never going to be a Springbok.  The jury is still out on whether Rey Lee-Lo and Willis Halaholo should or even can play together as a centre partnership, as opposed to provide injury cover for each other, as neither are effective distributors of the ball to a lethal attacking back three.  There are three home-grown wings arguably at least as good as Blaine Scully, if not better.  Expectations have been lowered in relation to the meaning of “marquee”.

This is not to say that, when at absolutely full strength, the Blues could not on their day in 2017-18 still scalp a very good European club side.  A team overly weighted towards veterans and kids, with players in their prime thin on the ground, can still win matches.

But they can struggle at the breakdown without at least one of Sam Warburton or Ellis Jenkins.  They can struggle to cross the gain line without Nick Williams.  Game management and straight running regularly goes AWOL without Gareth Anscombe (although Jarrod Evans has considerable potential, with Ben Jones following off the production conveyor belt in a few years time).

Matthew Morgan has sublime attacking skills, an asset if the Blues pack can get a stranglehold on a match, but he can defensively be an unaffordable luxury in all too many games where the Blues do not have a strong or even a stable forward platform.  How will the talented but very young props go, should the strong scrummaging Wales/Lions veteran Matthew Rees be absent through a lengthy injury?

It is to player development, and to Clive Jones in particular, that the Blues must now turn.  The Blues have no choice, even if the cultural change is being driven by financial necessity and gentle WRU coercion/guidance rather than by a willing embrace of their own volition.

The Blues are richly stocked in young talent.  Corey Domachowski, Dillon Lewis and Kieron Assiratti all have the potential to develop into strong regional props in the medium to long-term.  Aled Summerhill, a natural outside centre, has proved his lethal versatility on the wing.  Tomos Williams is already providing severe competition for international Lloyd Williams.  Jarrod Evans, another youngster with great potential, coolly slotted a difficult match winning conversion against Connacht out in Galway.

The laid back Seb Davies, an honorary “valleys boy” after stints up at Coleg y Cymoedd and Pontypridd RFC, could be the long-term answer to Welsh second row prayers as he fills out.  With North Wales still disenfranchised from the professional regional game, Rhun Williams has come down to the Blues in order to further his professional career.

We can already see small changes.

Garyn Smith, a centre who needs regular game time to maintain match fitness and form, but who all too often in the past has sat far too often on the bench, has been getting continuous game time this season for Pontypridd RFC when not required on regional duty.  He put in a tremendous man of the match performance in Pontypridd RFC’s recent league win over champions Merthyr RFC in “the battle of the eastern Glamorgan valleys”.  He will be ready to slot back in, when required by the Blues.

Garyn Smith will need to maintain his form and fitness, as will other regional centres, as the challenge from the next batch of centres such as the highly promising duo of Harri Millard and Owen Lane will soon emerge.

Competition for places driving performance, the best position to be in.  How many times have Wales fallen apart in an Autumn Internationals campaign because half a dozen star players get injured and their replacements are not close enough in terms of quality?  Where the replacements can step up, it leaves the new bench too weak to make the required impact?  Strength in depth is always required.

Clive Jones certainly appreciates that there are two different and distinct rugby cultures within the Blues region, what he not unreasonably describes as separate “provinces”.  The Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan of District B, and the eastern Glamorgan valleys and lower Mid Wales of District C.

Two schools districts (the giant Cardiff, which should long ago have been split into several smaller schools districts, and the Vale of Glamorgan) within the southern province.  Five schools districts (Pontypridd, Rhondda, Cynon Valley, Merthyr and South Powys) within the northern province.

And we want healthy competition between rugby cultures within a neutral regional framework.  Between the seven schools districts. Between Blues North U16s and Blues South U16s.  Between Coleg y Cymoedd and the Cardiff & Vale College and Ysgol Glantaf.  Between Cardiff RFC and Pontypridd RFC and Merthyr RFC.

There was little, if any, fuss over the postcodes allocation.  Even though allocating Pontypridd/Rhondda Schools to Pontypridd RFC gave them 12 players, and allocating Cynon Valley/Merthyr/South Powys Schools to Merthyr RFC gave them 2 players, there was no complaints from the Chief at Merthyr RFC.  He got himself two good young players in Harri Millard and Ben Jones, to add to his already strong squad.

In reality, Cynon Valley Schools probably historically belong to Pontypridd RFC.  But allocating 14 players to Pontypridd RFC and 0 players to Merthyr RFC would have been wrong in terms of regional impartiality, so Cynon Valley players will have to go to Merthyr RFC until more players comes through from Merthyr/South Powys Schools.

There is undoubtedly an inherent conceit at the heart of the “Cardiff RFC running a regional player development pathway nonsense”.  In reality, a self-entitlement to top flight rugby for one club, all funded by benefactors and the WRU member clubs, irrespective of the rest of Welsh rugby and its regional model.  But dressed up as preserving a club heritage that can be equally preserved in the WRU Premiership and where it would be a club rugby asset rather than a regional rugby negative.

Ironically most of the leading regional players who have departed the region and left behind the “club heritage” have come from Cardiff, not from the valleys.  Jamie Roberts, the Robinson brothers, Chris Cjekaj and most recently Rhys Patchell.  All Cardiff boys.

Thank god for the carefully managed Sam Warburton.

The “postcodes” policy allocation of fringe and academy players makes sense, even if is mostly symbolic in terms of availability and with the need for feeder clubs to develop their own squads.  There has to be flexibility.  For example, Kieron Assiratti and Dillon Lewis cannot both sensibly be allocated to Pontypridd RFC, even though we all know they would both choose that club of the region’s three WRU Premiership feeder clubs.

So Dillon Lewis has had to play for Cardiff RFC again this season.  But, when free on a Saturday afternoon and not required in that slot by either the region or Cardiff RFC, you will invariably see him supporting Pontypridd RFC and wearing their colours.  The same goes for other Pontypridd RFC old boys, such as Jarrod Evans.

I am a firm believer in all regional players being allocated to one club for a season, with academy players immersing themselves in that culture and battling for that club jersey, unless there is an exceptional regional rugby team reason requiring a player to play for another club on a given date ahead of a regional match.

We need our regions to reflect a regional culture, not just the culture of one club in the region.  If we turn the valleys players into mercenaries, with no affinity for their regional team, we will lose the later “arms race” with the English and French clubs to be the highest bidder for their services if we have turned it into for them a purely financial decision lacking emotion and the affinity of wanting to play for their home region.

And finally, by defining the southern province as Cardiff, it cannot also be used as unifying between the two competing provinces and adds further impetus to removing it from the regional brand.  Aligning the neutral Blues region with the two very different provinces below it, and the schools districts below them.