Wales won the grand slam in 2005 but less than a year later were looking for a new head coach after parting company with Mike Ruddock, whose methods had led to players making representations to the Welsh Rugby Union, the same body which is in discussions with Warren Gatland to take over the position following the failure of Ruddock's successor, Gareth Jenkins. In 2001, Gatland lost his job as Ireland's head coach, despite improving results, after players informed their union they had lost confidence in him. And so the rugby world goes round and round in ever decreasing circles. The more things change ...
The WRU says it has a three-man shortlist to succeed the shabbily-treated Jenkins, but the New Zealander Gatland is the man it wants. No Welshman is being, or has been, considered, small wonder when you consider the fate of the last five Wales-born coaches in the position: Jenkins lasted 16 months, Ruddock 21, nine fewer than Kevin Bowring, Ron Waldron's stay was 17 months, while his predecessor John Ryan was out after 19 months. Ruddock followed a trend started by Tony Gray and Alan Davies: shown the door within a year of winning something.
While Wales seem to be looking for a new coach every other year, it is easy to tell this month that a World Cup campaign has just ended. Australia and South Africa are interviewing prospective head coaches, France and Italy have already made their appointments, while England, New Zealand and Ireland are conducting reviews. Only Scotland seem intent on carrying on as they were regardless.
Rugby union, it seems, is conducted in four-year cycles. Everything is devoted to planning for a World Cup and, once the tournament is over, the dismantlers move in and the process starts all over again. Jake White led South Africa to the World Cup, but he sacrificed this year's Tri-Nations in the process. Graham Henry was determined to guide New Zealand to the trophy and wrecked his country's Super 14 chances in the process. Bernard Laporte spent every Six Nations since 2003 saying that, in the grand scheme of things, the championship did not count for much.
World Cups, if only because of their rarity value, are special, but they do not pay the bills. Henry angered the Super 14's television partners and backers, ditto White in the Tri-Nations. Money from the Six Nations keeps the Celtic unions from bankruptcy and Twickenham in profit. Devaluing tournaments which are played annually for the sake of something played over seven weeks once every four years is a dangerous game, one which treats the paying public with contempt. Outgoing and incoming tours have become blighted by the absence of leading players, yet they too provide a considerable source of revenue.
The World Cup is in danger of ruining international rugby. The England head coach Brian Ashton remarked after last month's final that it should not all be about planning for the next four years, and after guiding a side to the final whose preparation for the tournament could not have been in starker contrast to the military precision of the 2003 campaign, he more than had a point.
Premier Rugby runs risk of being charged with barbaric hypocrisy
A conference on the future structure of the game is being held in Woking next month. Dozens of ideas will be floated, but most will be sunk in the battle between the hemispheres. Logic should dictate that after a World Cup campaign, which seems to be set in September and October, none of the European unions should go on tour the following summer because there are no visits to reciprocate.
Equally, welcome though the return of the Barbarians playing a touring side is, it has no place in the calendar just after the end of a World Cup. Premier Rugby may have covetous eyes on the invitation club and an ulterior motive for banning its clubs from providing players for the December 1 match against South Africa at Twickenham, but England's players were away from their clubs, who still paid their wages, between the end of May and the end of October, and it is unfair, even on an EDF Energy Cup weekend, to demand their absence again.
If the sport continually devalues the tournaments which generate its revenue, it will pay. Premier Rugby, however, will stand charged with hypocrisy if in future it tries to resurrect fixtures such as the one last December between South Africa and a World XV at Welford Road, which it sanctioned and provided players for even though it was nothing more than a money-making exercise. England play the Barbarians at Twickenham on June 1 and there are suggestions that Premier Rugby will release players for the national side but not the invitation club, and that it wants to replace the fixture with England against an All Stars XV, so swelling its own coffers.
The Barbarians is a tradition which should be nourished and the club plays a considerable role in the development of the world game, but not just after a World Cup. And as for Wales playing South Africa on November 24 on a Magners League weekend - no more complaints about the Irish not taking that tournament seriously.
