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Page 1 of 2 Scotland 21 – 9 WalesWales registered a second defeat in the 2007 RBS Six Nations with a 21-9 defeat at Murrayfield in a dismal match between two sides that wouldn’t compete in the Welsh Premiership!
A VIEW FROM THE TERRACES: Scotland was poor, but Wales were completely inept and bereft of ideas. There were some good personal performances by certain individuals, but the team were a joke. I don’t completely blame the players though, the management simply fielded the wrong team and there appears to be no strength in depth for missing players. There were positive performances by Kevin Morgan, Mark Jones, Dwayne Peel, Ian Gough, Alex Popham and Martin Williams. Of the others, Stephen Jones is a fantastic player of the highest calibre, but as was evident from last weeks match he is off form and should never have played against Scotland. Chris Czekaj has huge potential, but is not ready for this level yet! Jamie Robinson, though not as bad a player as his brother, is clearly not international class. Ryan Jones played well, but again gave away too many penalties as he always does? The rest for the most part were inept and could have been replaced with non-regional Premiership players who would have done better. From several forum posts that I have read on various websites, most people agree that the wrong players were selected and this is down to the manager who lacks the bottle to experiment or to drop poor performing senior players. If this is the best that ‘Regional’ Rugby can produce, then let us end it now as the experiment has clearly failed. There is obviously not enough strength in depth from four professional teams and more are needed regardless of cost, especially if these teams keep importing mercenaries from abroad. So the WRU need to wake up, listen to the Welsh supporters and either introduce at least one other professional team, be it a valleys team or otherwise, or return to club rugby? Regardless of the regional argument or valleys representation issue, four teams playing in the joke that is the Celtic League where most games feature weakened opposition, is not good enough. With only players from three teams playing at the higher level in Europe, it is not enough to produce the quantity of quality players Wales needs to be successful at international level. Especially if these teams are allowed to field foreign players, who then reduce the capacity to field development players and provide much needed playing experience at regional level for our youngsters. As this last fortnight and the whole of last season has clearly proven, something needs to change. Below the regional first teams, the rest of Welsh rugby is working as the overall system of clubs and academies works, it is the management or set up of the regional teams themselves and the competitions they play in that needs changing. But we all know this won't happen, nothing to do with cost, but everything to do with WRU bias towards certain clubs that has always been evident and has been laid bare since the formation of regions. How can there be regional rugby when three teams still have individual club names in their titles and two of whom stood alone as clubs in the first place? Either they are regional teams and they need to change, as the Ospreys have, to recognise this. Or we don't have regions and we return to a reduced club league, which is what we currently have anyway? Either way there needs to be at least one more team involved at the highest level, there simply aren't enough Welsh players playing at this level to give the national side the players it needs to develop a successfull side. I believe there should ideally be two more teams to provide the number of players needed, whatever the financial arguement! Either we want international success and we make changes to gain it or we don't??
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