Whatever happened to ...

Tuesday September 02 2003

Stephen Jones of the Sunday Times wonders what happened to the all-conquering Wales pack of 1999 that won 10 matches in a row under the coaching of Graham Henry, with just one of them featuring in Steve Hansen's 2003 Rugby World Cup squad.

So Wales have announced their squad for the World Cup. Lots of high hopes and hot air accompanied the announcement. Steve Hansen, the coach, announced that the Welsh ambition was to reach the last eight. In other words, to beat Italy in their Pool. Didn't seem much of an ambition.

But the telling news surrounding the announcement concerned who had not made the squad, rather than those who are bound for Australia. Consider a few of the names who did not make it and consider evidence of the damnation of Welsh rugby and its whole system.

Just before the last World Cup, Wales toured in Argentina. No team from the Home Unions had ever won a Test series in the country. Wales had a youngish pack, who were up against a Puma pack that was then rated as among the best even that country of forward beasts had ever fielded.

The result was almost a sporting massacre - of the Pumas. The Welsh pack crushed them in both Test matches. The vaunted Pumas scrum was taken to pieces. At one stage in the first Test at the Ferrocarril Oeste Stadium, Wales drove Argentina backwards, over the touchline and almost into one of the dug-outs. A major fight erupted - Wales won that, too.

Federico Méndez, one of the forward greats of the era, left the field towards the end, apparently injured. "What was wrong with Méndez?," I asked one of the leading Argentina writers. "He was humiliated," was the reply. Wales were by no means the complete team on that tour, though they did win 10 games on the trot, all against major Test Unions, in one of the best runs of success the country ever enjoyed.

What happened to those young men who crushed the best pack in the world? They gave Wales a hint at a future world domination. And yet lately, one win over an abject Romania and a stupendously-poor Scotland apart, Wales have not won for what seems centuries. And in their run of success they were taken apart in an England second XV in the forward phases.

What happened? In that pack in far-off 1999 were Peter Rogers, a loosehead, who terrified the home pack; there was Chris Wyatt, the Llanelli lock who gave notice that he would become one of the great locks of the era; he was tall, athletic, dextrous and powerful; they was Ben Evans, a 20-year-old tighthead who was already a sensation. In reserve, not even in the team, was Darren Morris, a Swansea player of power, but who could pass and handle the ball like a three-quarter. Not a bad foundation for a World Cup pack for 2003, those chaps!

Except that they have all gone. None were chosen for the squad even though all are still playing and easily young enough. Wyatt, that brilliant talent, could not force his way in even though the Welsh locks are a mediocre bunch. Evans missed out too, the 20-year-old at the start of a great career is now a bystander, part of a Swansea team last year which almost disintegrated.

Rogers, frankly, became almost a figure of fun last season. "The most inexplicable loss of form I have ever encountered," said Graham Henry, of the man who once was the dominant figure in a dominant Welsh side under Henry. He has been cut by Cardiff, not a part of the Cardiff Blues professional team and not wanted by the Cardiff semi-professional club team. This season, this former titan will play for Roma, in Italy.

Morris, still a British Lion Test contender in 2001, was axed by the Swansea set-up after years of under-achievement, and has been clearly unfit and ponderous and wasting his talent. This season, he has been given one more chance, a golden chance. Dean Richards, the Director of Rugby at Leicester, has dragged Morris from ther scrapheap and made him a Tiger. That could either save Morris for Leicester and Wales; or, if he fails to measure up in an environment far above the feeble Welsh scene, send him into retirement.

What happened? What a waste! Look at the forwards that Wales have chosen and none match up in terms of ability with the missing generation; just as, to give another example, none of the scrum-halves chosen come remotely close to the class of Robert Howley, now on the form of his life at Wasps, the reigning English champions.

The truth is, of course, that the environment in Welsh rugby is wasteful in itself. All the players concerned must take blame for their failure to maximise themselves; in every case, especially that of Morris, the players lost fitness, dedication. They have all drifted away.

Compare the rigour of the scene in England with the softness of Welsh rugby. Top England rugby players have a dedication that is more than fanatical. They have a professional pride, a selflessness, which puts their peers in Wales to shame.

But individuals are often a product of their environment. Wales brought in New Zealand coaches (Henry and Steve Hansen) and an Australia (Scott Johnson) to import what they thought would be Down Under attitudes, ideal for galvanising the men of talent who lacked the right edge. To be fair to Henry, his efforts for Wales and the British Lions were vastly underrated; but neither he, nor Johnson nor Hansen have been able to maximise the talent under their disposal.

Surely, highly-paid coaches must be judged harshly in that failure. Hansen revealed afterwards that he had spoken to Wyatt at length after his non-selection. Millions of Welsh people would have been happier had he spoken to the richly-talented Wyatt before, in the seasons when Welsh forward-play under Hansen has become dire. No wonder the superb Howley cannot be bothered with it all.

Also condemned must be the authorities in Wales - especially the desperate, scared, backbiting regime of the Welsh Rugby Union of the last six or seven years; and the mincing, small-minded small men from small clubs, who used their vote to scupper professional rugby, and who ruined it - and themselves at the same time.

Good luck to the Welsh squad in their quest in Australia. But the failure of Welsh rugby in the professional era is underlined dramatically it is underlined by the superb, basic talent of the players left behind, left alone. Abandoned.