Gareth Anscombe accuses WRU of making ‘players feel like idiots’ and also takes swipe at Gloucester over ‘messed-up’ exit
Gareth Anscombe in action for Wales
Gareth Anscombe has unloaded on the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), accusing them of making “some horrible decisions” and explaining his regret that his Wales team didn’t follow through on the player strike that threatened the 2023 Six Nations match versus England.
The WRU’s latest plan for cost-saving measures includes the reduction from four regional teams to two.
This radical cut became public not long after it was confirmed that Steve Tandy had been appointed as Wales’ head coach after five matches were played with Matt Sherratt as their interim boss following the departure of Warren Gatland earlier this year.
The 34-year-old started three times in this year’s Six Nations for Sherratt, but he found out during that international window that he wasn’t being kept on by Gloucester at the end of the club season in England and has now hooked up with Bayonne in the Top 14.
“I have genuine concerns…”
He has yet to debut in the league for his new team with two rounds already played, but he settled into his new way of life across the Channel and had plenty to say about what he left behind in Wales and Gloucester in a candid interview with the Daily Mail.
The 42-cap fly-half has yet to speak to new Welsh team boss Tandy about his international future, but he wasn’t shy about reflecting on the mess that rugby in Wales is currently enduring.
“If Wales goes to two clubs, the game there will struggle to recover. It might never do,” he warned. “Change is needed. But I don’t see how going to two teams will benefit Wales in the long run. I have genuine concerns about the success and longevity of Welsh rugby if that happens.
“I have been outspoken over the years about what has gone on. But now, I just feel a bit beaten down by it all. I’m sick of it. I don’t want to fight it now or care. Now I’m in France, I can kind of dissociate myself from it. That’s really sad, isn’t it? As players in Wales, we should have stuck our heels in the ground more.
“In 2023, the boys should have gone through with the strike threat. One million per cent it should have happened because look at the mess we are in now. The frustrating thing for me is we have had people in power who come across like they know everything.
“Look at the trouble they have put the game in. They have been sacked or had their payouts and walked away. But at the time, they tried to make us players feel like idiots. Many of those players are still in the thick of it all now. It’s so easy for those guys at the top to come across like they are above us as players.
“But they have made some horrible decisions. I also feel like what has killed Wales has been a lack of decision-making. They have been so scared to make one. The knock-on effect has been we have sat on our hands and the game has got worse and worse.
“The people in charge have looked at Welsh rugby like a business. But in rugby, you are dealing with people first, not products. In Wales, rugby has been treated like a product – buying low and selling high. It doesn’t work like that.
“The WRU invested in a hotel and a zip line. But we have stopped the main thing being the main thing and now the main thing is in a bad, bad way. A lack of investment has put the Welsh game in a really tough position. How many times over the last couple of years have we had to hire external teams to give advice?
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“You do need consultants. I get that. But if that is the case, why are we paying the people in charge? The problems I could see from my experience in Wales post-covid were that talented young players just weren’t playing often enough at a high enough level.”
Rather than just criticising the shortcomings undermining the sport in Wales, Anscombe encouragingly provided a solution to the malaise in his revealing interview.
“I don’t see how having two teams with squads of 50 each changes that,” he said.
“My opinion about what is best for Welsh rugby would be having at least two teams in the English Premiership. It’s a no-brainer from a rugby and commercial point of view. It just has to happen.
“The problems I could see from my experience in Wales post-covid were that talented young players just weren’t playing often enough at a high enough level. I don’t see how having two teams with squads of 50 each changes that.
“My opinion about what is best for Welsh rugby would be having at least two teams in the English Premiership. It’s a no-brainer from a rugby and commercial point of view. It just has to happen.”
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Anscombe experienced the Premiership last year, the ex-Chiefs, Cardiff and Ospreys player joining Gloucester after finishing up at Tokyo Sungoliath. He started 15 times in the Premiership and twice more in the Challenge Cup, but that selection consistency didn’t result in an extension to his one-year deal.
“I loved Gloucester, but at the time I was really disappointed with how my contract situation played out. They said one thing and did the other,” he claimed. “It probably wasn’t done with full honesty.
“There were certainly some messed-up channels of communication. I got called back in by Wales for the Six Nations this year and I thought after that I was going back to Gloucester to re-sign. I found out a couple of days before playing Ireland that Gloucester were going in a different direction.”
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That uncertainty, though, served him well. “I was always keen to test myself in the Top 14. I had opportunities in previous years, but never did it – predominantly because of the rules on playing for Wales and where I was with my career there at the time.
“Now, the timing is right. Bayonne is rugby mad and I’m excited for the opportunity. There have been financial challenges around the game globally. But from being here, French rugby is beating to its own drum a little bit. The game is thriving.”
READ MORE: WRU defends plan to axe two teams, claiming ‘once in a generation opportunity to get this right’