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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