Gareth Davies called the Dragons “average” on Saturday night and then spent Sunday morning writing out an apology, the Scarlets announced this week. Quite right, too, says Robin Davey.
I’m not one bit surprised Scarlets scrum half Gareth Davies has been forced to issue an apology to the Dragons after the way he has slagged them off.
The Wales scrum-half was speaking after another one-sided performance by the Scarlets against their East Wales opponents on Judgement Day when the result was never in doubt.
True, it was another convincing victory, the latest in a long line, in fact, but that was no excuse for Davies to adopt such a superior tone and speak in the way he did.
He had every right to laud his own team’s performance, of course he did, and maybe say it was all too easy, even a bit of a stroll.
But Davies didn’t confine himself to that, what he said crossed the line of what is acceptable, particularly against a rival Welsh region.
Just remember what he did, in fact, say – “We didn’t get out of second gear. Every time we play against the Dragons they bring us down to their level which is very average. The Dragons are not up to much, are they?”
Damning doesn’t even come close, downright insulting more like. Davies should remember that there but for the grace of God cliche.
No-one, not even the most ardent Dragons fan, would doubt that the Scarlets are the best region in Wales, clearly the most successful, while the Dragons are comfortably the worst and have just come off a dreadful season in which they won just two games.
But the Scarlets were pretty miserable only the week before when they were thrashed by Leinster in a completely one-sided Champions Cup semi-final.
Now that was at a level and at a stage in Europe’s top competition the Dragons can only dream about, but the Scarlets were still humbled all the same. I don’t remember anyone carping or throwing insults at them in the Eastern part of Wales.
There’s no doubt in my mind what Davies said about the Dragons went too far. Presumably, while we have our favourites we want all four Welsh regions to be successful.
And while one might be at the top right now and by definition another one is bottom of the pile, who is to say those roles won’t be reversed some time in the future?
So it was appropriate for the rather more mature figure of Scarlets coach Wayne Pivac to tell Davies to apologise to the Dragons, to realise once he had slept on it that he had been in the wrong.
Davies quickly obliged – he had little option – and he promptly wrote a letter of apology to Dragons coach Bernard Jackman and also spoke to him on the telephone to express his regret. Jackman duly accepted the apology.
There has been some concern that as a result of the Davies case players will now be discouraged from making anything other than the most anodyne of comments to the media either before or after a particular match.
Not necessarily. There’s controversy, and then there’s insults. And to put down one of your biggest rivals in the way Davies did is not on.