WELSH RUGBY IS at a low ebb, but head coach Warren Gatland is “invigorated” by the challenge of getting them back to the top of the game, Rugby Weekly Extra, the podcast for subscribers to The 42, heard today.
Bernard Jackman, former Ireland hooker and Dragons head coach, said Gatland would regard it as his “greatest achievement” to lead the current generation of Wales players to Six Nations championship glory in the coming seasons.
Gatland won five championships, including three Grand Slams, as Wales head coach between 2007-19. He returned to the post in 2022 and it is widely believed that today’s crop of players, who lost a World Cup quarter-final to Argentina, lack the talent of those Gatland led during his first stint. The are reasons for this fall off in standards, according to Jackman.
“There’s been a serious lack of investment,” Jackman said. “The game has gone to a certain extent, it’s not the most popular game in Wales anymore. A lot of kids now are picking soccer.
“There’s a massive problem with the community game, underage games, with games being called off because clubs can’t field a team at U14s, U16s, some of those kids are only getting one game a month in the valleys . . . Pitches unplayable, just . . . it’s in a bad place and, yeah, it’s just all coming home to roost.
“Obviously then they try to stay a little bit flexible around the number of caps you need to leave but now what a lot of English clubs are doing is they are coming in and hoovering up the best young talent at 16, 17. Exeter, location wise, is pretty close to Wales and they’ve been able to come up and put together scholarships to universities and just take the best talent out.
“The English Premiership wasn’t in a healthy place financially for the last couple of years, but yet it was still far more attractive, and had far more stability, than the regional rugby – which is mad when you consider that three clubs have gone out of business, but that was actually more stable than Welsh rugby.
“You look at the regions – again they’re going to knock another million off the budget next year. We’ve obviously had two tough games this weekend for our provinces against Cardiff and the Ospreys but when you look at the Dragons and Scarlets, the types of performances they’re putting in, it’s pretty poor.
“Gatland apparently is totally invigorated by this opportunity because he thinks if he pulls it off it will be his greatest achievement – to get this group of Welsh players back.”
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