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After the Blues’ failure to lure James Hook from the Ospreys, ANDY HOWELL of The Western Mail believes a player draft system may be the only solution to the wasting of Welsh talent.
THE BLUES have brought the issue of whether there should be a player draft in Welsh rugby back to the debating table with their bold bid to sign James Hook.
The transfer was, as expected, dismissed by arch-rivals the Ospreys.
However, the big question is: Are Ospreys acting in the best interests of Welsh rugby and of Hook himself, or merely looking after themselves?
Well, the answer isn’t difficult to find because the Swansea-based region are merely protecting their position.
And who can blame them?
Why would they want to release Hook early from his contract having publicly stated their goal is to be the first Welsh team to lift the Heineken Cup?
The Ospreys are adhering to the system which is in place in Welsh rugby, namely that players are contracted directly to the regions.
Could anybody imagine a situation, if the boot was on the other foot, where the Blues would give up a player of Hook’s quality? Not a chance.
And so wannabe outside-half Hook is a victim of the system the regions wanted, and have fought so hard to maintain.
It’s called the free market, where the highest bidder usually gets what he wants.
But the end result is that you get a scramble for players, with wages being artificially inflated by the cash coming from the same central pot.
This is how it works: the Welsh Rugby Union banks the money heading the way of the Blues, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets for participating in the Heineken Cup, the Magners League and whatever the Anglo-Welsh thing is called these days.
The governing body then wires it on to the four regions, also providing a top-up from central funds generated largely through Wales internationals and the World Cup.
Then the Blues, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets dip into that same pot to attempt to outbid each other.
The Dragons, for example might offer £80,000 a year for Player X, starting a bidding war.
The Scarlets come in with £90,000, the Blues up it to £100,000 and the Ospreys trump them with £110,000.
Player X’s agent then goes back to the Dragons and the process continues until there’s one team left standing.
It’s sheer madness.
It’d be like yours truly having £1m spare a year to give to each of the regions and not having a say in how they spend it.
How the WRU allows that to happen is beyond me.
The regions argue it’s a fair system, that without their benefactors in some instances making extra payments the professional game would fail in Wales.
They claim the WRU couldn’t afford to finance it, but I don’t buy that argument at all. All it has to do is cut out the middle men – the regions – and pay the players directly.
It would be far better and vastly more economical, and we wouldn’t then be having this discussion about whether Hook should be offered the chance to leave Ospreys before his contract ends at the end of the 2010-11 season.
For what it’s worth, I firmly believe he must slap in a transfer request now because I can only see his career continuing to stagnate at the Liberty Stadium now he has the words “utility player” stamped alongside his name.
You could put your last penny on it that Wales coach Warren Gatland would love for gifted playmaker Hook to move on now that the Ospreys, judging by their comments, seem to have put all their eggs in the basket of promising youngster Dan Biggar.
Gatland has a different view, sources close to him revealing he has now come around to believing that Wales played some of the best attacking rugby of his reign on-route to the 2008 Grand Slam, when Hook started the majority of matches at No 10.
But the Wales coach apparently feels the Ospreys’ reluctance to pick Hook at outside-half means it would be difficult to name the 24-year-old in the position in his Wales side to face England in the Six Nations opener on February 6.
Gatland is deeply concerned at Wales’ try count having dried up since blasting Scotland aside in last February’s Six Nations opener.
It culminated with Wales creating just one touchdown – all the others came from opposition mistakes or were opportunist scores – during last month’s four internationals, against New Zealand, Samoa, Argentina and Australia.
Gatland might not, for political reasons, be able to say it or publicly campaign for it, but he’d probably be jumping up and down with joy if Hook headed along the M4 to the Blues, or if central contracts were brought in.
That’s because Welsh rugby would benefit enormously from the likes of Hook, Jonathan Thomas, Ian Evans, Richard Hibbard, Craig Mitchell, Tom Smith and Gareth Owen, a player highly rated by the Wales management, being placed in a draft pool.
That those are all Ospreys is a credit to the system in place in that region. The irony perhaps is that Ospreylia is producing too many good players.
The danger which comes then is that hot prospects like Owen, Smith and Mitchell miss out on vital development time through a lack of match action.
Spending a couple of seasons gathering splinters on the bench is hardly conducive to becoming an international fixture.
Yet it’s not just the Ospreys who are guilty of putting their own interests first.
Classic examples of players whose careers are in danger of petering out are Robin Sowden-Taylor, Dafydd Hewitt and Gavin Evans at the Blues.
Sowden-Taylor, for so long Martyn Williams’ understudy, has now been overtaken in the pecking order by Sam Warburton.
Centre Hewitt promises much, but isn’t afforded the opportunity in many games, while Wales international centre Evans has virtually disappeared off the radar after making the crazy decision to leave the Scarlets, where he would have had numerous opportunities.
Examples of players who have benefited hugely from moving on and getting regular starts are scrum-half Wayne Evans and centre Tom Riley, who both ended up at perceived minnows Dragons after leaving Blues.
The Ospreys and the Blues would argue they’d provide the bulk of players to a draft pool, but, give it a year, and the system would bed down.
They would claim Welsh chances of lifting the Heineken Cup would be damaged but, hey, none of our teams have looked like winning it with the policy that’s currently in place.
For a piece of compelling evidence of why an urgent re-
think is needed, you only have to look at the crack Super 14 tournament, where having a draft system has seen New Zealand’s franchises dominate it.
And you can see how much faith there really is in home talent when the Ospreys ignore the claims of the fit scrum-halves on their books, like former Wales Under-21 international Liam Davies, and sign South Africa cap Ricky Januarie on a short-term contract for the remainder of the pool stage of the Heineken.
Another example can be found with the Blues, who have signed Scotland international Dan Parks for next term after failing to land Hook.
There could be a situation come September when two of the four first-choice outside-halves at the regions – Parks and Dragons’ James Arlidge – are foreigners.
Surely it would be far better if Hook was No 10 at Blues, Priestland at Dragons, Biggar at Ospreys and Stephen Jones at Scarlets?
Far better yes. Likely? Not in the slightest, unless Welsh rugby can collectively grasp the nettle and bring in change.