enby wrote: ↑May 20th, 2022, 10:13 pm
Conceding 69 to an Italian team is nothing short of a disgrace. The attitude of Welsh teams in our league is mystifying. It must be dreadful being a supporter of such consistently apathetic sides
Welsh rugby is in a really poor way from the looks of things. I remember when I was a kid growing up [late 80s into the 90s] that Wales were bad – not far off being as bad as us.* Back then the bugbear was rugby league taking their best players. So it must have been the amateur era.
Jonathan Davies, John Devereaux, Richard Webster, Scott Gibbs and Scott Quinnell were the ones I remember leaving for the northern code, but the biggest fuss was about Davies [by a mile]. There was article after article about
'The Welsh Flyhalf Factory' having shut down along with the coal mines. They were always talking about the teams of the 1970s.
Gatland brought them a hell of a lot of success over a decade after Ruddock broke the duck in 2005, but they look in serious trouble now. Their U20s have finished either fourth or fifth in the last five years of the U20 Six Nations, and their regions are p*ss poor.
Five years in a row of bad U20s results means that you are going to have a huge hole in your squad at some stage [it's already happening, in my opinion]; the regions being poor means that there's not much chance of those players getting great coaching, learning good habits and making significant improvements between 20-25 years old.
*I just checked and Wales only won Five Nations trophies in the 1980s and 1990s, in 1988 and 1994. We actually won more – winners in 1982 and 1985 and a share in 1983.
