A Few Words From A Critical Friend

CF10’s position has always been that it wishes to be seen as a “critical friend” by the club. Criticising when necessary and telling home truths when the club needs to be told some home truths. Because we want the club to succeed. Our criticism comes from a place of love.

This intention needs to be kept in mind, because there is about to be a lot of criticism.

On Saturday, despite recent performances, the Arms Park was packed, perhaps more out of hope than expectation. After the game, not many of the paying public will have still felt proud to associate themselves with the club. It will be very difficult to persuade many to return if we continue to be served up appalling, shameful displays like the one we witnessed on the weekend. Asking people to continue handing over money for performances like that is an insult.

How did this happen? Lets go back a year….

In April 2021, Dai Young selected a Cardiff team to face the Ospreys in the Rainbow Cup which confused a lot of supporters. It was a selection featuring many 3rd and 4th choice players, some out of position. Some of us were in fact saying that the team selection indicated that Dai had thrown the game before kick off.

My personal feeling was that a last chance was being handed to some players. The new coach was surely about to clear out players he didn’t feel up to it ahead of reshaping the squad. Some of the players in that team were likely playing for Cardiff for the final time. It was the last chance saloon.

Or so I thought. After the match, Dai Young revealed that everyone in that team was in fact contracted for at least another season. He was indeed giving them a chance to show what they could do, but regardless of their performances, his hands were tied and they would be staying.

Later that year as the new season came along, it began being reported anecdotally that in private Dai Young was deeply frustrated by the contract situation limiting his ability to reshape the squad for at least another season. Some players were either sent out on loan or released to other clubs in what looked like a determined effort to cut the squad by any means available.

In the week prior to Saturday’s capitulation Dai finally went public with his frustration. Some of the language used (“nobody has got a job for life”) is very telling in the light of the performance that followed.

Why were so many long term contracts handed out?

The contract extensions, which limit Dai’s ability to overhaul his squad, were put in place due to COVID. Players accepted 25% pay cuts and were rewarded with extended contracts.

Covid was a time of unprecedented challenge. Difficult decisions had to be made and innovative solutions found. But as far as we’re aware, not all clubs took the step of handing out extended contracts. It could well be that Cardiff found themselves with bigger financial challenges than others and so had more reason to offer the contract extension as a solution. But at this point we have to ask why this decision had to be made.

Because these extended contracts are now casting a dark cloud over the club and, with wholesale changes still unlikely, how much unintended damage has been done by this decision?

It’s true that Dai Young may have made a bad situation worse. If he has been telling players that in the long run he doesn’t see them having a future at the club and has been actively trying to move them to other clubs, it cannot be a recipe for positive squad cohesion. The low morale plain for all to see may well be a result of Dai Young’s poor man management.

But the COVID contract mess seems to be an extension of a problem that has been part and parcel of Cardiff rugby club for too long.

Sometimes it feels like it’s harder to get out of the 40-50 strong Cardiff squad than it is to get into it.

How many times over the years have we seen players come into the squad, establish themselves as a 2nd or 3rd choice and then remain year on year, not pushing on and seemingly happy to make occasional appearances of average standard, only to keep getting a new contract?

We’ve been told many times over the years that Cardiff is a friendly club where players and staff all get on well, are good mates outside work and look out for one another. Something of a family. That's nice. But is it really the recipe for a thriving sporting environment?

Lets digress for a moment….

An 18 year old rugby player named Thierry Futeu left his home in Cameroon after picking up rugby in school and deciding to become a professional. To this end, with a friend he drove through Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger until arriving in Algeria. There, after three attempts, dodging police, they made the five hour trek across the desert by foot to the city of Tamanrasset. From there they made it to Morocco, where he lived for months in forest camps near the Spanish enclave of Melilla, before finally making it onto Spanish soil. He now plays for Alcobendas in the Spanish first division and is able to send money home.

An extreme example for sure, but a reminder that playing rugby professionally is a privilege and a distant dream for many. Its not something to be taken lightly. Nobody is entitled to play sport for a living.

The joy of Cardiff’s quarantine enforced “misfit” squad’s matches against Toulouse and Harlequins was that players were getting a completely unexpected chance to play at that level and thriving in it. Some were too young to think that the chance might be around the corner. Some were older and had long given up any thought of playing on such a stage. They responded with commitment and rugby played with a smile on it’s face. After the match, the players talked about the matches in terms of a dream come true. It painted the club in a wonderful light and was in stark contrast to recent performances by the supposed senior team.

Throughout the Welsh Premiership and RFU Championship there are players, not least in our own Cardiff RFC “Rags” squad ,striving to become full time players. Across the world there are 1000s of players doing the same. Some of our most committed players over the years have been North Americans thriving at the chance to play the game for a living. Another local success story has been Cardiff Met, where a squad largely made up of players released by English academies work hard to find an alternative route to pro rugby.

Why then should we tolerate players who appear to feel entitled to keep picking up easy contracts? Who is this serving?

You start to wonder who the club is being run for.

Ultimately, professional sports teams need to be run for the fans. They need to be a source of pride for the people of the city they’re based in and beyond. People should be proud to associate themselves with the club. Running a professional sports club for any other purpose will not end well.

The second or third choice player in his fourth year as a professional may feel that he’s part of the furniture and enjoy coming to work every day. But he is nowhere near as important as the guy who began supporting the club twenty years ago and is now bringing his son and daughter along. The 70 year old who has stood on the terraces since he was a child, through good and bad years is far more important than any superstar on an elite 38 deal. The assistant coaches who have worked their way up the ladder for years may feel they’ve earned their lot the hard way, but far more important are the groups of friends who have been going to matches for years and always try persuading other friends to come along with them.

Those are the people who put their hands in their pockets and who really do bleed blue and black when you cut them. The club has to be about making those people proud. Not about keeping under performing players and staff in jobs.

When the club makes those people proud, the terraces will be full, the jerseys will be sold and the rest will fall into place.

So what has to happen next?

No doubt there will be all kinds of internal, emergency meetings this week (if not, Christ almighty why not?!). Two things have to be established:

1) Why precisely were contract extensions agreed to and were all other options explored? Why weren’t all clubs forced into this policy?

2) What can now be done about this?

Criticism of Dai Young and his coaching staff is perfectly legitimate. But there is little sense in seeking to replace Dai at this point, even though his recent interview hinted very strongly that he has lost the support of at least part of the changing room:

“The last 12 months has been trying to raise the bar and improve players. Some have got behind it, some still need a bit of convincing."

The ones who need convincing have to go. Whoever the head coach is, they will want to put their stamp on the team and build their own squad. And, frankly, if some players really do need to be convinced that they need to improve, there can be no valid argument for them remaining part of the squad aside from the lengthy deals they’ve been handed.

If he hasn’t already, Dai Young needs to provide a list of players he doesn’t think he can work with and they need to be excluded from any further selection this season and next. If they have to continue being paid while not playing, so be it. Going by recent displays some won’t be too concerned. If there's no money to replace them? So be it.

If this means drafting in academy players en masse to see out the season, so much the better. As many a junior rugby coach will have said to underperforming players, “If you don’t want to be out there, there are plenty of other boys here that do.”

Many fans would probably at this point welcome a Toulouse/Quins solution where we select young inexperienced teams and may not expect results, but will be confident that the players are playing their hearts out.

Doing nothing is not an option. Recent weeks have to be a watershed moment when finally, a much needed change of culture happens at the Arms Park.

And if anyone at the club disagrees that there needs to be a change of culture? Perhaps they need to ask themselves if they are in fact part of the problem.