Gareth Davies was once replaced by AN Other in the Wales team, but the Welsh Rugby Union chairman is making a significant impact in his current role, says Geraint Powell of rugby blog @TheVietGwent.
Sometimes it feels that there is only space in UK boardrooms for one star performer: the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). It certainly felt like that at the WRU during the regimes of David Moffett and Roger Lewis, with WRU Chairman David Pickering barely publicly visible at times. The CEO role is the kudos of ultimate responsibility, the big pay cheque and the lion’s share of the profile and glory, balanced somewhat by the (usually agreeably distant) spectre of dismissal if things go really pear-shaped.
The CEO role has it all: power, control, money, jeopardy. No wonder CEOs traditionally tend to hog all the limelight. Reinforced at the WRU by the Chairman only being an appointment from and by a board mostly comprised of elected national and district representatives (even limiting the traditional board Chairman’s role of power over boardroom appointments) and by the WRU CEO himself unusually being a full board voting director.
The Chairman’s corporate role in a large multi-stakeholder business is generally less obvious and much less well understood by the general public. In rugby terms we often think of the Chairman in terms of a benefactor “hobby horser” in a small private company running a smaller non-Test team business, the CEO little more than an employee administrator dealing with the day to day minutae for the Chairman. The Scarlets CEO recently departing, the Chairman now acting as Chairman and the de facto CEO.
It is rather different in a larger company like the WRU, let alone at a public FTSE100 or FTSE250 company. The task of running the board rather than running the company can appear limited and process-heavy, a lot of dull admin to be tackled whilst the CEO is having all the real fun. But a good company Chairman can be worth his weight in gold, beyond his principal power role in controlling much of the boardroom agenda. In Welsh rugby the Chairman can also be the pivotal politician, internally smoothing relations and communications with the districts and their board representatives and externally representing the WRU within the Six Nations and also very importantly within the corridors of power at World Rugby.
Welsh rugby’s habit of publicly shooting itself in the foot did not begin with the advent of professionalism in 1995, or even with the advent of national leagues in 1990. It is a tradition from time immemorial, or at least dating back to the 1870s/1880s.
I still (just about) remember the extraordinary events of the spring of 1985. Postponed early rounds of the 5 Nations matches due to inclement weather and British Lion level 10 Gareth Davies recalled to the Welsh Test team after a 3 year absence. A victory at Murrayfield, but then defeats at home to Ireland and away to France in Paris. And Gareth Davies scapegoated by the “Big Five” selectors, not merely dropped but ignominiously dropped in favour of “A N Other” for the final and postponed England match in Cardiff. It was appalling at the time, and time has not dulled my anger. There was/is no way to justify it, from sportsman man management to acceptable human behaviour.
And a particularly bemusing deselection for Pontypool fans for, a week before the trip to Paris, Gareth Davies had put in a sublime controlling performance for Cardiff against Pontypool in a WRU Cup semi-final at Rodney Parade. Pontypool had knocked Cardiff out of the WRU Cup in 1983, had secured a win and a draw from their two visits to the Arms Park in 1984, and secured a comfortable 24-6 win over Cardiff at Pontypool Park just 2 weeks before (as Cardiff tried and failed to run the ball away from the Pooler pack), but this was turned into a 3-24 mess of a performance refereed by Pooler’s least favourite celebrity referee of the era. Cardiff successfully raised their game and took on the Pooler pack this time, fought fire with fire. Ray Prosser called it “men against boys“, not a public utterance you would hear from a defeated coach nowadays in the professional era.
A Cardiff performance orchestrated by Gareth Davies, 20 points from his boot and the kick that set-up Mark Ring for the only try of the match. He couldn’t play to that level every week, but that was the level he regularly could play to and why he was a British Lion. The level he had played to a week earlier against Pontypool. 3-14 in France was no disgrace in that era, and others were far more to blame for that defeat than him.
The “A N Other” soon turned out to be a young Jonathan Davies of Neath RFC, or “Jiffy” for short. The start of his own short 3 year Test career, before the futility dawned upon him in 1988 of trying to compete against NZ structures from within archaic Welsh structures after Wales plummeted 3-52 in Christchurch and 9-54 in Auckland to defeats by the All Blacks. Superior NZ rugby structures and systems. The more things change, the more they stay the same. No “Welsh” chaos in their move from 27 historic provincial teams to 5 new artificial professional region franchises for Super Rugby.
And also defeats to NZ provinces Northland (with former Pooler sabbatical Ian Dunn masterminding the Welsh downfall), Wellington and (with Warren Gatland at hooker) Waikato. At least only one match for Wales against a NZ region (not historic province) in 2016, but 7-40 against the Chiefs. But it was another defeat in Hamilton, 28 years later. The NZ tour in 1988 followed by a home defeat for Jiffy against Romania in November 1988, and then the riches of Widnes accepted and the road north travelled. It became a very well trodden road in those days.
Without too much fanfare, the WRU announced on 1 December that Gareth Davies, as one of the two WRU members on World Rugby’s council, had been elected on to the all-powerful Executive Committee of World Rugby. This is a significant event, a voice and input again at the highest level of global rugby administration, for I have always felt that it was his predecessor’s voting off the Executive Committee in December 2011 that was the beginning of the end of the previous regime. Losing at “the game” of World Rugby politics has never strengthened any rugby administrator domestically.
We have all seen how Gareth Davies and Martyn Phillips used the Welsh tour of New Zealand last summer as a fact finding mission, not just a rugby tour, and to meet with the leading NZRU rugby administrators such as Brent Impey and Steve Tew and to study the superior structures/systems in New Zealand rugby.
The latest problems in Welsh pro rugby did not begin with Roger Lewis’s renewal of the WRU annual subsidies to the regions in the 2009-14 Participation Agreement. We have seen previously how (with hindsight) the regions probably did need a greater WRU annual increase than from £3.6 million to £6 million per annum from 2009-10, even if they had got their own affairs in better order. To counter the global financial crisis recession, the increasing TV revenue from Canal+ to the French clubs, and the exchange rate movements between the € and the £, but a 66.67% increase is not “starving” anybody. Try that one on your boss tomorrow, that a 66.67% pay rise would be “starving you”. And good luck! Sure Roger Lewis wanted more bang from the increased WRU buck, but nevertheless…
One of the curious anomalies within Welsh rugby is that those who resent the power of the national federations in the sport, both domestically and globally, make little if any attempt to understand the political dynamics playing out within and between national federations. And, as a result, they are constantly perplexed by entirely foreseeable and predictable developments. Instead they just hurl abuse at “blazers”, as if rugby administrators have never worn a suit and club or region funding directors have never worn a blazer. And understanding these dynamics and trends matters so very much.
In the end, and despite the media frenzy, there was not a cataclysmic collision and final denouement between Roger Lewis and the regions funding directors in the summer of 2014. It turned into rather a damp squib. The regions finally dropped their resistance to any form of central contracts, with the introduction of a limited form of marquee player dual central contracts. Although we must call them “NDCs“, to allow a few to save face.
There was a widespread gut feeling within the WRU club membership that Roger Lewis was lacking in empathy for the grassroots game, that he was an employee that was becoming dictatorial and centralising, that he was too focussed upon the Test team to the exclusion of all else, that David Pickering and the rest of the board were not the ones setting policy, and that the seemingly intractable stand-off with the regions funding directors was becoming counter-productive for everybody involved in Welsh rugby. But the direct challenge of David Moffett crashed and burned. When the WRU clubs were asked to vote with a perceived social media circus and for the regions funding directors against their own elected WRU board, they backed their board by 462 votes to 4. But that was very much the beginning of the story, certainly not the end.
When Roger Lewis immediately began to present the result of this as an overwhelming personal mandate, and followed up with a remarkably ill considered and badly timed top down restructuring of the leagues with very little consultation (and which I have felt was his real final undoing with the WRU club membership), the die was cast. So when the indirect opportunity arose within months to replace David Pickering with Gareth Davies, the clubs and the majority of the WRU board both seized the opportunity. To re-set relations with the funding directors, to at least try and make the 2014-20 RSA work. The old WRU CEO had too much baggage to be part of this rapprochement. And besides, 9 years as WRU CEO is probably more than enough for any executive and even in less volatile times. “The poisoned chalice” can take a toll on some.
Gareth Davies inherited an onerous burden. The last opportunity to align and evolve entirely from within and without significant breakage. Vernon Pugh QC versus the funding directors, Glanmor Griffiths versus the funding directors, David Moffett versus the funding directors, Roger Lewis versus the funding directors. If it ever descends into Martyn Phillips versus the funding directors, it is game over in relation to any nominally independent supply chain. Get out that blank piece of paper and start the professional era again. And in fairness, I think most of the funding directors have recognised this realpolitik and are keen to now work with the WRU.
If a Cardiff RFC CEO pre-regions, who was also a Dragons CEO post-regions, can’t build a harmonious relationship with this supply chain, then frankly nobody can under this deeply flawed and troubled structural model. But also an executive aware of the wider picture, of “alignment”, an executive that took a pre-season region match to Ebbw Vale and who once candidly admitted on the basis of his own career that Test rugby becomes a player’s real focus and priority once he starts playing at that highest level.
And, to be fair, I think most would agree that Gareth Davies has done a pretty good job so far. In this initial period. Public tensions with the regions funding directors are much reduced. I would be astonished if any think Gareth Davies “is out to drive them out”. The limited system of marquee dual central contracts has helped to reduce the pro player exodus, and the WRU has already increased funding from £2 million to £2.5 million per annum, although it will need to be taken considerably further in future if the WRU is thinking in terms of player contracting solutions rather than of region equity stake solutions to modernise our regional structures.
The WRU Premiership’s profile has been raised, and the growing RGC1404 project is now firmly within it. Firmly within tier 1 of it. The Ospreys and the Scarlets are at least both competitive within the Pro 12, although worries of duplication within that limited Port Talbot-Neath-Llanelli triangle consumer market will not disappear, and the Blues started this season brightly and might still recover for an all-important top 6 finish.
The Dragons have a strong young pathway and young player base, if off-field stability can be achieved as they become the first of the regions needing to replace their pre-regions era benefactors. The sooner the WRU takes over the other 50% of the Dragons, the better. In my opinion. NZ-style regionalism is finally beginning in the eastern franchise, or Gwent if you prefer, but it might need the WRU to bring it through to fruition in District A and the easternmost parts of District C. Did Gareth Davies start the breaking down of barriers and the healing of old wounds, with that 2014 Dragons match against Northampton in Ebbw Vale? Even if the Dragons have not yet followed this missionary work up with their long overdue identity rebrand.
There are enormous challenges ahead, of that there is no doubt. Welsh rugby is always a potential tinderbox nowadays. For we have a system that does not work, has never worked in its existence, and will never work without significant reform. We can try some icing on the cake, with lots of sugar on top, but ultimately that is the taste of our sponge and we need to all be honest about this. All that can be said about 2003-16 is that it has been an improvement upon 1995-2003 in the limited sense of concentrating player and WRU/TV financial resources.
There are significant shortcomings in the pathway (especially within the Blues region), the most “successful” part of the regions system. Anything would be “successful” compared to the representation performance, at least outside of Ospreylia and more recently RGC1404. Welsh Test teams have not been built on strong regions sides, for regions sides have been decidedly weak since 2012, as the ideal supply chain scenario. And through numerous structural and systemic flaws, we certainly don’t make the best/most of what we do have. And now we have Test rugby speeding up and the interpretations / laws favouring attacking sides, something that boosts teams with good basic rugby skills. With the best will in the world, that has not been Welsh rugby and “the pattern” of the Test team in recent seasons and the disjointed supply chain feeding into it.
But we now at least have stability at the top, winning again at “the game” of World Rugby politics, without embarrassing internal strife caused by conflict and stalemate, and with a growing acceptance that a low or no bank debt WRU, rather than any current private equity holder, will be the main commercial player in Welsh rugby with the coming of the next successor regional organisations/regions franchise agreement in 2020. Stability for the challenges ahead he himself recognises, in a very divided rugby country.
“We need to get everybody on the same page talking together. There hasn’t been that much coming together which everybody now recognises. We’re putting a plan in place to make sure everybody is on that same page. We still have to deliver that plan, which will be tough as well. Unless we’re all aligned we’ve got no chance of delivering it. We’ve got to get together in order to drive the game forward. I think there’s a will to do it.”
This article is courtesy of @TheVietGwent – a Welsh rugby blog.