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Why the Regions were the real winners in the Poss V Probs


Roger Lewis

By Andrew Collins
June 2 2014

Matthew Morgan, Matthew Rees, Jordan Williams and Gareth Davies may have been the winners on the pitch, but it was the Blues, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets who were the big victors on Friday night…

As Rob Howley’s ‘Probales’ took to the field, generally feeling confident of their spot on tour, against Robin McBrides’s less fancied ‘Possiles’, there were several notable admissions from the two teams. While some of those – Rhys Priestland, Bradley Davies and Dan Lydiate – were due to injury, there were perhaps more missing for more political reasons.

Gavin Henson, Owen Williams, Ryan Jones, Rhys Gill, Paul James, Craig Mitchell, Jonathan Thomas, Tavis Knoyle and Marc Jones all missed the opportunity to take part in Wales’ pre-South African trial match as their employers - or clubs - refused to allow them.

Admittedly, some of those names were perhaps unlikely to ever make one of the two squads, but there can be no under playing how good this was from the regions’ point of view.

With so many Welshmen currently exiled in England and France, it will serve as a timely reminder that for many, leaving Wales is leaving Welsh international rugby.

It also sends a valuable message to the WRU that, with the Participation Agreement deadline approaching, they can’t afford to let this trend continue.

The whole debacle was extremely embarrassing for Team Wales, who announced Gavin Henson and Owen Williams would both take part in the match, only to be told by a Premiership representative that that wasn’t in fact the case;

"Premiership Rugby has a policy to only release non-England players under the conditions of the International Rugby Board's regulation nine.

"This regulation covers international release for every Test country across the world. This trial match does not fall under IRB regulation nine."

The WRU promptly issued rebuttal that they would ‘liaise with Premiership Rugby, the clubs and the players to discuss availability to the Wales senior trial’, but clearly they didn’t have the liaising power they thought.

In 12 months’ time, there will be even fewer Welsh squad players playing in their homeland, with Leigh Halfpenny, Jonathan Davies and Richard Hibbard the latest players to jump ship. How likely will it be then to play a pre-World Cup ‘trial’ match, when so few of the potential party won’t be allowed to play!

Mitchell and Knoyle are returning to Wales – for them, their careers have stalled, perhaps beyond the point of a return to international rugby, since leaving Wales. It just goes to show that the draw of pulling on the red shirt is incredibly strong and will keep players in Wales, thus improving our regional squads. We know we can’t compete with the money in France and England, but we do have something that they can’t offer. If the WRU and Regions can work together to find a fair solution, then we could stem the tidal flow of players going abroad, but until they can set aside egos and find a shared objective, both will continue the current decent towards oblivion.

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Why the Regions were the real winners in the Poss V Probs
Discussion started by theArmsPark.co.uk , 02/06/2014 17:39
theArmsPark.co.uk
02/06/2014 17:39
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omarsharif
02/06/2014 18:02
Good article, you are dead right.The WRU are a load of bent charlatans who are killing Welsh Rugby through their greedy self interest.Pickering is not qualified to run any business, Lewis is on the Capital Cardiff gravy train and Gethin needs to lose some weight for his celeb photo sessions st big matches.
Let's hope the EGM will flush them out from their grubby little comfort ones.

Rich.
03/06/2014 11:07
RWW (and WRU) needs to understand why such a quickly arranged game sold out whereas if as many current Welsh starters were playing in an Os v Scarlets game it would not have sold out - despite that being a 'real' match etc etc. It seems to suggest (once again!) that the regions don't publicise enough who will be playing in their matches etc It also suggest that thw WRU used their huge email contacxt list of those who've bought tickets for international recently. The Regions need to have use of that (if allowed - data protection and all) or at least the WRU could email out to people on their behalf

Neil
03/06/2014 16:16
It 'sold out' because it was heavily advertised in excess of 6.5k tickets were given away It was ther chance for kids to go with tickets @ £1 kids £5 adults

It will be interesting to see how much the game raised as all profits will be going to charity..
The squad was known beforehand and cementhead didn't need it to pick his squad.. Maybe the players needed a competitive game before going out (BaBaas did ofer!)

What was stupid and shows the level of arrogance RL has is to presume that PRL would change their stance in anyway shape or form

___________________________________________________________

Soldier: This is the worst part. The calm before the battle
Fry: And then the battle is not so bad?
Soldier: Oh, right. I forgot about the battle

Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot

Joni89
04/06/2014 08:18
Rich - your point about the WRU contact list is interesting. As far as I am aware, the WRU are the ones who organise and promote Judgement Day where attendance figures this year were down on last year.

I also think that pricing had a major influence on the fact that the Prob v Poss match was a sell out. Although highly unlikely, it would be interesting to see the attendance if the same pricing strategy was adopted for Judgement Day (£5 and £1 tickets)!

ATTR
04/06/2014 11:23
The WRU mailing list is largely irrelevant to "judgement day". Why? Because a large number of International goers have no interest in the four professional clubs. Some are, of course in the North others quite a distance from the centre of Cardiff. When you consider that the game was on EASTER Sunday with all that implies with regard to transport. The WRU truly messed up "judgement day".

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