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The latest rugby news from Wales and around the world
These are your latest rugby headlines on Tuesday, December 16.
Holley: Captains’ moves ‘devastating’
Former Ospreys head coach Sean Holley says Jac Morgan and Dewi Lake’s exits to English rugby is devastating and a “sad day” for the game in Wales.
On Monday the Swansea-based club confirmed the departures of the Wales captains to English PREM side Gloucester.
The moves have been trailed over the past few weeks but official confirmation was still a heavy burden to bear for Ospreys supporters.
Holley said the departures of Morgan and Lake “can’t be underestimated” and said it “beggars belief” that the game in Wales is losing such high-profile players when they are needed the most.
“I’m obviously very disappointed,” he said on BBC Scrum V.
“There’s no smoke without fire. It just confirms everything we sort of knew. For our two captains who are young men really in their careers to choose to go across the bridge and play now is pretty devastating I think.
“I just think of these two as role models, I think we’ve got three younger role models in Dewi, Jac and Louis Rees-Zammit and they are now playing with English clubs.
“If you’re a young winger and looking at Louis Rees-Zammit as a role model you are thinking ‘it’s all right, I’ll go to Filton College now I’m 16 and I’ll go and play for Bristol’.
“Likewise if you’re an openside aspiring to be like Jac Morgan, who is by far and away our best player and an incredible human being, you’ll think it’s all right to go to Gloucester, so I’ll go to Hartpury (college).
“It’s devastating. I don’t think it can be underestimated. We talked last week about the ramifications of losing someone like the Ospreys. Jac has already moved from the Scarlets, having spent a lot of time nurturing his talents with Aberavon in the Ospreys region, went to the Scarlets and then he chose to go back to the Ospreys and he clearly doesn’t want to go to another Welsh entity.
“It beggars belief, to me, really, that we’ve got players of this calibre, stature, where we are struggling for high-profile players, struggling for quality and role model, [who] are now going to play for Gloucester.
“Can you imagine the Irish Rugby Union letting Caelan Doris to go play for Bath? Can you imagine the RFU letting Ellis Genge go play for Cardiff? It’s just a sad day, another sad day.”
Bradley calls for clarity
Meanwhile, Ospreys chief Lance Bradley has urged for a swift resolution to the regional situation.
The WRU want to reduce the number of professional teams in Wales from four to three, with the Scarlets and Ospreys seemingly facing off against each other as the team in the west. The Union also want a team in the east and one based in Cardiff.
Speculation has been rife that Ospreys owners Y11 could take over WRU-owned Cardiff.
Bradley says the Ospreys are continuing to “build for the future” with the new deals for Morgan Morse and Harri Deaves and that everyone has “had enough” of all the uncertainty engulfing Welsh rugby.
“When we should all be still celebrating the fantastic win in France this weekend, instead we’re having to announce that Jac and Dewi are leaving,” he wrote on X. “But we continue to build for the future with Harri and Morgan re-signing. Roll on some certainty. We’ve all had enough of this.”
World Rugby make announcement
World Rugby have announced that a lower tackle height will be trialled at elite level next year, with tackles above the sternum set to be banned at the World U20s Championship in Georgia next summer.
The height limit on legal tackles has already been dropped from shoulder to sternum in community rugby in 11 countries over the past two seasons. World Rugby analysis of tackles made since the change was introduced showing varying decreases in the number of concussions suffered by players, as well as only minor changes in the overall flow of the game.
Under the trialled measures, if a tackler hits a player above the sternum but below the head, play will carry on with the attacking team having an advantage. The new tackle height doesn’t apply when a player ‘picks and goes’, however, nor when they are in the act of scoring a try. Players carrying the ball will also be penalised if they lead with their head, making it difficult for a legal tackle to be made.
“Player welfare is at the heart of everything World Rugby does,” said the governing body’s chairman Brett Robinson. “We’ll leave no stone left unturned in our efforts to make the game as safe as it can be.
“Having said that, protecting what makes rugby, rugby is a vital part of my role. We’ll undertake this trial, study it closely to ensure we have a game and an Under-20 Championship that excites players and fans alike.”
If the trialled law work well at next summer’s U20s World Championship, World Rugby vice-chair Jonathan Webb says a full roll-out of the law would be the next step to consider.
“If this is successful and shows good metrics and positive outcomes, the question is whether we take that into the elite game,” he said. “That is going to be a big decision, but my own feeling is that it will have to be an all or nothing.
“That will be very complex, the game is far faster, the game is under huge scrutiny, the pressure on players and referees is enormous.”
Moore: Two Welsh teams could join PREM
England legend Brian Moore has proposed the creation of a ‘UK and Irish league’ featuring Welsh teams, as the Gallagher PREM prepares to undergo a “nuclear” change to ensure its future.
PREM Rugby has received formal approval from the Rugby Football Union to become a closed franchise league, which is now expected to happen next year. It will see at least 10 clubs centralising broadcasting rights, merchandising and kit deals, amongst other things, with increased revenues divided equally between the teams.
While there are 10 teams in the existing top flight of English rugby, there are plans for it to become an expanded 12-team competition with no promotion or relegation.
Writing in his column for The Telegraph, Moore admits that the English professional game is “now at a crossroads,” adding that “what happens next is a nuclear option that will decide whether [it] will survive in the medium and longer term.”
However, he also questions whether the proposed changes go far enough, asking why two Welsh or Scottish teams could not be included in the new league, as well as suggesting the creation of a 15-strong league also featuring Irish sides.
“I label this decision as nuclear because it will, effectively, change the face of English rugby for the next two decades,” he said of the proposed change to the PREM. “What I fear is that the proposal does not go far enough.
“If, as is mooted, the franchised league might be expanded by two or more clubs, why not invite two Welsh or Scottish franchises and make the commercial offering a UK-based property rather than a simply English one?
“If you want to be really innovative, you could have a UK and Irish league of 15-plus sides that would rival France’s Top 14,” Moore added. “That way you could restrict European fixtures to a straight knockout tournament with more jeopardy and whose semi-finals and final would not lose the participation that is not hopelessly divided to unconnected parts of the season.”
