Time runs out for the Millennium man

With the dragon in intensive care, the future of Welsh rugby will be debated yet again next Sunday, at a special general meeting of the Welsh Rugby Union at St David's Hall in Cardiff. Following the latest slaying of the national team by England at Twickenham, where Wales have conceded 156 points on their last three visits, there will be much huffing and puffing, but will anyone dare to blow the house down?

Chairing the meeting will be Sir Tasker Watkins, the venerable and decorated president of the WRU, who has more reason than most to be frustrated not only at Wales's long-term decline but at the absence of any lasting remedial action. "Things have reached a delicate stage," Sir Tasker said, "and this is the time to say next to bugger all, if you'll pardon my language."

It was almost two years ago that Sir Tasker was invited by the WRU, who were under pressure from the leading clubs, to head a working party whose brief was to look at the game in the Principality from top to bottom and recommend changes. Sir Tasker, flanked by three independent members, the former international players Gwyn Jones, Ken Jones and Gerald Davies, and three members of the WRU general committee including the chairman, Glanmor Griffiths, held more than 30 meetings spanning 18 months. They interviewed hundreds of people across the broadest spectrum.

During the course of this scorched- earth study, Griffiths resigned from the working party. Sir Tasker's report, presented before Christmas, included the recommendations there should be no more than eight teams in the Premier League and that there should be a change of governance, with an executive board running the game.

The WRU's response was breathtaking. There was no discussion with the working party, no meeting, and no debate. Instead Griffiths produced his own report, which was compiled in less than a month. Its main thrust was that the Premier League should be condensed to six clubs, beginning the season after next.

This was in line with the demands of the self-appointed Gang of Six: Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Llanelli, Pontypridd and Bridgend. However, the Premier clubs, at the insistence of the WRU, had signed a 10-year loyalty agreement with the Union, and that includes those who could now be jettisoned. It was the refusal of Cardiff and Swansea to sign such an agreement in 1998 that led to them being banned from the Welsh league and they resorted to playing meaningless matches against clubs in the English Premiership. After a season of high farce they returned to a Welsh-Scottish league that included the Scottish district clubs, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

It was a poor substitute for a British league, which never left the drawing board, and the initial international success of Graham Henry signalled a false renaissance. The shattering defeat to Ireland in Dublin in the Six Nations this season convinced Henry it was time for him to go, but there had been an even more depressing result against the Irish as long ago as 1995, when Wales were knocked out of the World Cup in Johannesburg.

During his reign Henry kept pointing out that the structure in Wales was hopeless: New Zealand concentrates on five teams, South Africa on four and Australia three. End of story. Nobody listened, or if they did nobody acted.

Not that there was anything new in Henry's view. Ray Williams, a former secretary of the WRU, proposed a radical restructuring in favour of regional teams. In 1974. "I put it to the committee," Williams recalled last week, "and it went down like a lead balloon. Everybody talks about the club structure when the starting point should be the national team. Once that is in place everything else follows. If we concentrate on six clubs or whatever we will only get a strong national team by accident.

"Club rugby is far too tribal. We need four regional teams, with all the players contracted to the WRU. The problem is there is no leadership."

Few expect the audience at the national concert hall next Sunday, when the choir stalls will be filled with delegates, to sing from the same hymn sheet. Griffiths wants six but the first division clubs want a Premier League of 12. There are 239 clubs in the Union, and if the smaller fry win the vote the result will probably be a form of civil war, with millionaire owners threatening a breakaway, accusations of the tail wagging the dog, political infighting across the map, etc, etc.

England has been there and fought similar battles and emerged with a streamlined professional management, a modern partnership between clubs and country and a successful national team. Across the Severn Bridge, wasn't anybody taking note?

The WRU's general committee has 27 members and they meet twice a month. The chairman, of course, is Griffiths, who is also the honorary treasurer of the WRU as well as being chairman and financial officer of the Millennium Stadium. This is a huge responsibility for one man and, given the state of the union, the overriding impression is that he is overemployed.

Last season the WRU made a loss of £400,000 compared to the Rugby Football Union's profit of £8 million in England, and their total debt is £55m. There are no sponsors of Welsh rugby and even the building society that puts its name to the Principality Cup does so for £93,000. The premier clubs receive £600,000 from the WRU, a third of their English counterparts, yet Wales has some of the highest-paid players in the world. Among the nine Premier clubs are 46 players who are not qualified to play for Wales; there are more Welsh qualified players in England than in Wales.

Reconciling the tribal rivals in Wales was never going to be an easy task, but the present crisis could have been averted had the WRU acted decisively and courageously. As the leader of the pack, Griffiths carries the responsibility and the blame. The former bank manager is fond of preaching evolution not revolution, but a once-proud rugby nation is in the mood for the latter.

The WRU need a constitutional shake-up with the appointment of a chief executive, preferably with a successful business background, and the general committee should be sidelined, if not abolished. Griffiths' greatest achievement was to oversee, against all the odds, the completion of the Millennium Stadium. It made many people grateful, not least the traders of Cardiff, who host hundreds of thousands of English football supporters. Unfortunately, the Welsh rugby team can no longer fill the stadium. "At Twickenham I was apologising to my English friends for not giving them a match," Ray Williams said. The time for apologising has passed. The Millennium Stadium is Griffiths' legacy, but in every other regard he should, if not in the name of God then St David, go.