Doubt over regions is fast escalating into a civil war
Six Nations squad announcement overshadowed
The prevailing mood in Welsh rugby has frequently been dark but rarely this bible black. Once upon a time a Six Nations squad announcement would have topped the agenda across the country; on Tuesday it felt like a semicolon in a much bigger narrative. Even Wales have never selected seven players whose club is in imminent danger of being axed by their own union.
The bare facts of the situation are increasingly stark for all involved. The existing owners of Ospreys, Wales’s most successful region of the past two decades, have just been controversially nominated as the preferred bidders for Cardiff, potentially clearing the way to reduce the number of Welsh professional sides from four to three. The internecine politics have become so increasingly toxic that Steve Tandy, the national head coach, had to plead for rugby-related questions at his lunchtime squad announcement.
Good luck with that. Barely had Tandy, a distinguished ex-Ospreys player and coach himself, completed his media duties in a soggy Vale of Glamorgan than a statement was being issued by the current Ospreys squad on social media, accusing their owners and the Welsh Rugby Union of leaving them in the dark. “We struggle to believe the most successful Welsh team to exist with the biggest history is on the brink of non-existence,” read the statement, making clear the players had yet to receive any notification of any kind. “We will continue to play for the fans and for the people who have stood by the Ospreys over the years.”
