Bump.
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We only put out 12 players against them didnât we?
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A lot of parallels between Welsh rugby and West Indies cricket. Professionalism was the death knell of both. Neither were big enough markets or anywhere economically strong enough societies in general to sustain professional sports.
The ultimate terminal decline of Welsh rugby was masked for a long time by the two generations of teams and many great players almost back to back that straddled the years between the Grand Slam win of 2005 and their last championship win of 2021.
West Indies cricket was ultimately going to be goosed with the emergence of Kerry Packer World Series Cricket in the late 1970âs, even as they were about to embark on their most dominant era with their greatest team in the 1980âs and then had Brian Lara and Curtley Ambrose two of the greatest ever players to keep them competitive in the 1990âs. West Indies have been whipping boys and largely an irrelevance for 25 years now and thatâs what is ahead for Welsh rugby.
The GAA would do well to pay heed to what has happened to Welsh rugby and West Indies cricket. You often make the very apt reference to the Off The Ball Crew and the Dublin v Mayo 2015 replay, can we do this every weekâŚâŚThe demise of the Leinster Football Championship, Cork football and todays news that Leitrim canât field a team is the way a creeping push towards some form of professionalism is where Gaelic Football is going.
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I think the key point you make is the time factor. It takes time for things to properly unravel. If they donât unravel immediately, the spivs take it as proof that what theyâre doing is right.
Far too many people think in the short term, not the longer term. Ireland have fared better than Wales from professionalism but a downturn might not be that far away either.
Ireland were very lucky in the way Wales and Scotland werenât that they had readymade provincial structures that people could buy into.
But even these are failing now. Two of three core provinces, Munster and Ulster, are now effectively afterthoughts. Connacht will only ever be a remedial class of Irish rugby. Leinster is becoming Ireland. Increasingly the Munster players who get into the Irish side are Leinster lads who slipped through the cracks and found their way back up.
The great Munster team was a product of the amateur era. That 2000-2008 period was a sweet spot where the products of amateurism met the new professional game and it all came together. But once that team departed the connection became increasingly broken and now with Conor Murray and particularly Peter OâMahony (who is a sort of spirtual guardian of Munsterness) on their last legs the connection will be broken further.
Some years back, it must be seven or eight years ago, I watched a bit of a video I chanced upon on YouTube, it was a Welsh first division club game between Pontypridd and Swansea from March 1997, covered live on BBC Wales with Eddie Butler involved in the coverage. This was just into the professional era, but the connection was still there. There was a huge crowd. The atmosphere was like what you might imagine a mythical Ye Olde county hurling final in Clare or Galway might have been like. But the connection was about to be broken. This game was the end of a century old tradition broadcast on live television. Pontypridd are gone, Swansea are gone. Games like this were Welsh rugby. Theyâre gone now.
This is the video Iâm talking about.
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Iâm not nearly as well up on cricket as you but I recall a few things about West Indian cricket.
Seeing pictures of the 1975 and 1979 one day World Cup finals and how Lordâs was taken over by the West Indian diaspora living in London, how they spilled onto the pitch near the end of the games when it was obvious the West Indies were going to win. As somebody from the country which had the other great London disapora tradition going back many decades it was hard not to be moved by it.
Watching the 1990 Test series between the West Indies and England which was broadcast live on Sky One. The grounds were like a carnival, full of noise and colour. But like that Welsh club rugby game from 1997, it turned out this was the death throes of something, which far from being permanent, was actually something vulnerable which could be killed off if not carefully nurtured.
Watching the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, and seeing how the grounds used were so bare and atmosphere-free. The public didnât seem to care, presumably the ticket prices were sky high too, feeding into a vicious circle. It was depressing.
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It was mentioned elsewhere but Gatland made a comment as he was leaving that they couldnât get money in to do elite underage programmes. Prodigious Welsh talent is going to the schools in the West Country and some are getting picked by the RFU. He mentioned setting aside ÂŁ1m for elite schools programmes for 10 schoolsâŚno money apparently. He also mentioned the âinvestmentâ in womenâs pro rugby as a competing demand.
This business of paying women minimum 2
wage to play rugby âprofessionallyâ is moronic and follows the football path of stupidity in the U.K. This notion that âprofessionalismâ equals quality is such nonsense. Most grassroots sports would benefit from women finally being given access to the sport through the clubs, instead we are spending money pretending as though paying people like they would get paid to work in a shop is equivalent to professional sport.
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Itâs so essential for the Scotch 9 to make touch with those clearances
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Where is the co-commentator based, the moon?! Terrible sound off his mic.
Havenât read the book but I saw the Fire In Babylon documentary which was over a decade ago.
Great line by Graham inside Finn Russell
That was a well worked Scotland try.
Scotland have France well under the pump now, merited yellow
Some run back by Kinghorn to set that up
The head on Galthie 
Denied by the TMO
Penaud did well to keep that alive
France on the second half handicap is buying money
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Scotland playing in their away kit doesnât sit well with me. In a clash of colours situation in rugby traditionally it was always the home team who switched to their away colours.
In my memory France traditionally wore white in the Championship more than they would wear blue but that seems to have long gone by the boards.
I donât like this new rule where if a player is held up over the try line itâs a goal line drop out.
Scotland will beat Ireland next year. Theyâve been far from disgraced here.
Ireland finish 3rd in a 3 horse race.