NO-ONE climbed off a plane, waved a peace of paper at cheering crowds and declared peace in our time, but the guns have finally stopped firing in Welsh rugby. Listen closely enough and you may even be able to hear the sound of birdsong.
It’s been a while since anyone was able to write that in relation to the game this side of the Severn Bridge.
How long the sweetness and light will last is anyone’s guess, but at least a fresh framework has been set in place for better relations between the Welsh Rugby Union and the regions. The Nobel peace prize probably isn’t going to end up in Wales any decade soon, but for the first time in the best part of 18 months there is consensus at the top of the professional game over matters such as funding, player contracts and how best to keep leading players at home.
At one point there appeared more chance of achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East than getting key figures on both sides in Welsh rugby to sign the new Rugby Services Agreement.
But it finally happened at the Millennium Stadium late yesterday afternoon when union and regional representatives put their paw prints on a £60 million pact that is scheduled to last until 2020.
The headline figure is impressive, but it needs stressing the Earth isn’t going to tilt on its axis as a result of these events. Relative to some of their rivals in other countries, and especially in France, the regions still face a challenge to compete financially. But as Paul Thorburn was saying at the IPC European Championships, Welsh rugby will never operate on equal economic terms as the French given the seemingly bottomless pit of euros in the game there.
But the aim of the changes is to at least improve matters.
At the heart of the deal are dual contracts, with a yearly fund of £3.3 million being created to pay for them, based on a 60-40 WRU-regions split, with the union stumping up around £2 million and the regions supplying the difference.
Such an arrangement will free up money for the four professional teams to potentially spend on developing their squads.
In bald financial terms it means the £6.7 million from central funds that the regions have been receiving will be augmented by an extra couple of million more, hiking it to around £8.7 million.
Further brightening the scene for the regions, the union will dish out a one-off payment of £2 million — £500,000 apiece — for signing the new agreement.
And the governing body have agreed to make £3.6 million in loan facilities available to them over the course of the deal.
Wales’s head coach will select players for the dual contracts and they will become WRU employees.
Not altogether expectedly, the RSA revives the spirit of Gatland’s Law, the policy aimed at giving priority in Wales selection to home-based players.
It has been rebranded as the senior player selection policy, but the drift of it is the same, declaring that players based outside Wales in future will not be eligible for selection subject to a number of exceptions which the national head coach has the right to make. If anything, the new ruling seems tougher than the original dictum.
The policy will become active once a minimum of six senior players prioritised by the Wales head coach have been signed on dual deals.
How many games the dual-contract brigade will play for their regions hasn’t been made clear but the figure of 16 in a regular season has been suggested — which a fair number of leading players currently don’t exceed, anyway.
The question is why it has taken so long and so much heartache to arrive at this point. The above figures have been kicked around for some time but it has taken the thick end of 500 days for a settlement to be thrashed out. That doesn’t reflect well on anyone.
True: good things are supposed to come to those who wait.
But, in this instance, key players should be embarrassed that it has taken so long.
Both sides have had to give a little bit, to adapt a line from Supertramp in their late-1970s pomp. The regions have collectively had to accept the dual-contract concept, which some figures among them initially had reservations about, while the union have had to dip into their pockets.
Whether union minds were concentrated by the proximity of the fourth autumn international and the prospect of Wales taking on South Africa without any regional players, we can only surmise. But at night, Roger Lewis could have been forgiven for lying awake and staring at the ceiling, thinking of the utter humiliation such a scenario would have brought about for Welsh rugby if it had unfolded.
Anyway, he doesn’t need to trouble himself over that now. Wales will still have the option of playing 13 internationals a season, including the fourth autumn Test. Players will also continue to be released 13 days before international campaigns.
In that sense Warren Gatland is among the winners.
But maybe the biggest winners are the supporters, who can finally enjoy rugby without having to worry so much about the politics. At one point it looked like those fans might not have regions to support, but to their immense credit their backing rarely wavered and the campaigns they ran were important in raising awareness, winning the PR battle and stiffening resolve.
It is fair to say the Ospreys haven’t morphed into Toulouse overnight.
But at least the cloud of uncertainty over the regions has been lifted.
The players? They will also feel a bit better this morning, but it is a crying shame so many A-listers have left while the game here has dithered. You can’t blame them, with rugby being a short career and all that. Even the most committed home bird must have thought of taking flight as the bickering raged.
There are still unlikely to be too many gilt-edged pay packages handed out in Welsh rugby.
Most of the regions still have a morbid dread of living beyond their means and fuelling wage inflation. For all, the challenge will be to demonstrate ambition while not overdoing the spending — nothing new there.
For Welsh rugby, the scars will take a long time to fade.
But the main thing is a deal has been done.
That has to be worth at least two cheers.
The day the guns stopped firing in Welsh rugby — and not a moment too soon
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