Welsh rugby's fundamental problem means they can't stop the catastrophe they saw coming

Three years ago, Nigel Walker, as a member of Cardiff's board, warned of the "terminal decline" that Welsh rugby was hurtling towards.

On Sunday, with his Cardiff hat long gone and his Welsh Rugby Union blazer firmly on, he watched from the back of the Ray Gravell media room as Welsh rugby drifted ever closer to irrelevance.

For all the talk of narrative - again, I despise that word - from the Welsh media, the pull of Welsh rugby in the press is shrinking rapidly. The national papers barely cover Welsh rugby, as the readership simply isn't there, while TNT have seen fit to give Wales two Sunday matches this autumn.

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Even the Welsh rugby press pack is smaller than people think. Then there's the empty seats - some 30,000 over the last two weekends. The interest, in all honesty, isn't what it once was - a symptom of Welsh rugby's slow and painful downfall.

Signalling the nadir in Welsh rugby has become a fruitless task in recent years. Rock bottom has seemingly been reached, only for further depths to be plumbed week after week.

But, as Walker and 56,188 others watched Warren Gatland's current crop officially become the worst Welsh team in history - based on consecutive Test defeats - this is a new low.

Only Georgia's narrow defeat to Italy saved Wales from the ignominy of falling to 12th in the world. This isn't the fault of the players, giving their all as proud Welshmen but ultimately victims of a system that has failed them emphatically.

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Just how did we get here? Well, how long have you got? The ills of Welsh rugby are many and, depending on your viewpoint, go back as far as you care to trawl through the history books.

One phone call I received on the morning after Wales' 52-20 defeat to Australia lamented, among other things, Welsh rugby's failures to build upon the golden era of the 1970s, while the decision to turn down places in England a quarter of a century ago is often pointed to in today's failings.

There are through lines from those previous missteps to the mess we face today. Welsh rugby, as a whole, is guilty of resting on its laurels.

The structures that underpinned the success of Gatland's first spell in charge were left to rot long before the New Zealander left his post in 2019. Gatland's first reign was built upon the foundations of the early days of regional rugby, when Welsh sides competed regularly on the domestic front and proved the perfect proving ground for Test rugby.

However, early on in Gatland's reign, the focus shifted within the WRU to Team Wales. That's been the golden goose, ever since. Everything has been built towards the national team and relationships between the WRU and the four professional clubs have suffered as a result.

Walker's words three years ago on this, particularly given his own trajectory since, carry even more weight now - if not for the reasons he meant previously. The onus is now on him to be part of the solution, rather than the cause.

“When Warren Gatland came in, he put together a system which was all Wales," said Walker in 2021. "It wasn’t about the regions.

“Therefore Wales, over the last 15 years, have been successful and that’s great, we all applaud that. The national team has done very well, but regional rugby has struggled.

“If you don’t change, eventually Wales will stop winning. The regions will continue to be unsuccessful and Welsh players won’t want to play for them. They will go elsewhere.

“The standard in the regions will get lower and lower and lower and they won’t produce the players which will enable Wales to be successful.

“Those players who won the Six Nations weren’t produced by Wales, they were produced by the regions. If the regions get weaker, eventually they won’t produce any players.

“It won’t happen overnight. It won’t happen in the next three or four years. It takes time for the rot to set in. But it will happen and once that rot sets in, it will take a generation or more to reverse it.

“If the regions wither, you see what happens to Wales. And without Wales being successful, the game will go into terminal decline in this country.”

The fundamental problem is they fundamentally disagree

That's where we are now. Those within the WRU - which now includes Walker - will point to the changes Gatland has regularly said he wants. More control within the professional clubs, less non-Welsh qualified players.

The four clubs don't want that though. They will feel they've been undervalued for over 15 years, compensated unfairly for the access they provide the national team to their players and burdened with a Covid loan that was financially crippling.

As such, even with the recent talk of improved relations between Gatland and the four clubs, it's hardly a case of singing Kumbaya around the campfire. Relationships in Welsh rugby, generally, are fraught - the result of nearly two decades of toxic in-fighting and jostling for survival.

If Gatland goes, and it's looking increasingly likely he will, that'll be a big factor. Gatland spoke about mitigating negativity but, all too often, his viewpoint of the four professional clubs and how he works with them has been a big source of that negativity. There's no love lost on either side, if we're being honest.

Even beyond Gatland and the four professional sides, there's few facets of Welsh rugby that work successfully together. All too often, the archaic nature of the WRU constitution - a professional game, which generates almost all of the revenue, governed by the 300-plus community clubs - has caused its fair share of problems.

In no way can you say Welsh rugby is working at any level right now. Gatland returned to the job in December 2022, with no financial agreement in place with the four professional clubs. Steve Phillips, the former WRU CEO who brought Gatland back, wasn't long for Welsh rugby, with allegations of sexism within the Union forcing his resignation shortly after Gatland returned.

Phillips surely knew these problems were on the horizon. In the years that have followed, it's felt more and more like a desperate grasp as the tide turned on him.

After 17 defeats in 23 Tests in a meandering and seemingly aimless couple of years at Test level, this now feels like the end for Gatland. There's no clarity on any break clause in his contract next year. Despite suggestions there is one, others in Welsh rugby circles believe there isn't.

There might be an option post-Six Nations, but it's apparently a mutual one. Either way, it's a red herring. If he's going, he'll go sooner rather than later. It feels like all parties have reached that point now. With empty seats and dwindling interest, it's becoming a question of can Welsh rugby afford to keep Gatland, rather than if they can afford to get rid.

If and when he does go, he'll leave Welsh rugby while the game in this country is mired in another scandal that has seen another head coach - women's boss Ioan Cunningham - depart, while there's still no plan in place for the game moving forward.

A new strategy was promised in the first part of the year by WRU CEO Abi Tierney and chair Richard Collier-Keywood.

It's now November and, bar a bullet-point presentation in June to buy time, that strategy is still not done. Negotiations are still ongoing beyond the internal deadline set earlier this month, with no imminent signs of publication.

Fundamentally, getting people to agree on anything in Welsh rugby seems nigh-on impossible. There's no indication that culture or relationships have changed for the better. Gatland's departure, if it comes, should be the start, rather than the end on that front.

Teflon was the word used recently by one source, when rumours were rife over Walker's future as executive director of rugby following reports of his behaviour in dealing with contracts in the women's game this year. On Tuesday before the Fiji game, he was seemingly gone. By Thursday of the same week, it was apparent Cunningham would be the sacrificial lamb.

Gatland is seemingly the next to go. Walker, the man who in his role has overseen just four victories from 21 matches in the nation's two senior sides this year, will seemingly carry on, watching from the back of the room as his own warnings of terminal decline become a reality.

Whether he, or anyone else at Welsh rugby's top table, have the capability to enact genuine change that saves the game remains to be seen.