Rhys Webb: A Victim Of The Welsh Rugby Union's Brexit In Advance Policy

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

In the rare times I chat about rugby in this blog I always feel the necessity to preface what I'm going to say by mentioning that though I don't dislike the game it's not my favourite sport and there are far more knowledgeable people than I who write about it.

Still I've held the view that though all powerful in it's sport the Welsh Rugby Union is incompetent in the way it runs things and now comes an example of who will be eligible to play for the national team.

There is a new rule brought in that says to be eligible to play for Wales yet play your club rugby for team outside of Cymru you must have won at least sixty caps. Rhys Webb, who intends to play for Toulon next season has only won twenty eight and is distraught to find himself ineligible to play for his nation having signed the contract before this condition was known.

Now whether this is the idea of the coach Warren Gatland  (who clearly supports this) or the WRU is unclear. I would guess this is a combination of the two. Still what you are getting is the Welsh Rugby Union operating a "Brexit in Advance" strategy.

Now this doesn't apply to Welsh rugby players already playing abroad. As for this "sixty caps" idea. It reminds me of plays from what was the Communist Eastern Europe coming to play in the decadent Western football leagues once they had proved themselves by playing for the [insert national team here] over a number of years.

So why are the WRU doing this? Do they think that the messed up state of Welsh club rugby is going to be improved by having a raft of discontented players who are unable to experience life in a foreign country because of a Brexit loving policy? Do they really think that it will be impossible that Wales could be improved as a team by players learning things from foreign coaches in foreign teams?

Ah yes, foreign coaches. Put your Brexit "Wales first" policy to the coaches as well then WRU. Think of all the Welsh club jobs that would go in one swoop then. Including of course that of the New Zealander Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards. But you won't of course.

A player like Webb, who has spent ten years playing Welsh rugby will suffer for trying to improve himself. This will do him or Welsh rugby no good at all.

So the WRU's Brexit in Advance Policy is just like the original Brexit. Where the seekers of purity from foreign influence have not thought their ideas through.

And the whole nation will suffer if there's no compromise.

Until the next time.