Welsh union broke faith with fans over NZ game
JEFF PROBYN
A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME
Wales kicked off this autumn series of internationals last week with a game that flew in the face of what could be said to be the main reason for the relationship between the supporters and those they pay to watch, which is a fair chance for their team to win.
When an international is played between countries of roughly the same standard (Tier 1) it is usually with a full squad, as these matches define the world ranking of your country and, therefore to a certain extent, the money that is made.
You only have to look at the price of the tickets for these ‘prestige' matches compared to usual games or games against Tier 2 nations to see the extra money they can and do generate.
And yet the game was arranged outside the international window, leaving the Welsh hosts no access to a number of key players and with no proper warm-up games.
This, against an All Blacks team who have been playing through and winning the Rugby Championship and are ranked four or five places above Wales in World Rugby's ranking level.
Unfortunately, the resulting match proved more than a step too far for what was in essence a Wales second team.
However, the 54-16 result was a major disappointment for Welsh fans who would have hoped for a closer result even against a primed All Blacks team, had they fielded a full strength side.
This begs the question: why would Wales seek to play a game against a top nation when they knew they couldn't gain access to a full quota of their best players? Wales knew the English Premiership would refuse to release any of their Welsh contingent for fear of damaging the financial player release agreement with the RFU.
If, as it appears, this game was arranged only as a money spinner for the WRU with a percentage going to the All Blacks (who were reputed to have been paid £2m for the fixture) they have let their supporters down.
In arranging the fixture they have broken an unwritten covenant between the union and its fan base that demands the union will do everything it can to win these one-off games. But it
“Why would Wales seek to play against a top nation without their best players?” didn't. As usual nowadays the game was not without controversy as once more we have had complaints about how the game had been officiated with Wales fans objecting to how the referee interpreted a tackle as yellow instead of red card.
This led to the usual speculation that NZ prop Nepo Laulala should have been sent off before half time instead of just being sin binned for his ‘no arm' tackle and that it may have made a difference to the result, but somehow I doubt it.
