Welsh rugby could arguably pay a bigger price this weekend than any financial gain they may make
“Price is what you pay, value is what you get,” supposedly said Warren Buffett once.
The American investor certainly knows a lot about price and value. You wonder what he’d make of this weekend’s out-of-window clash between Wales and South Africa.
Where exactly does the value lie in taking on the back-to-back world champions shorn of 13 frontline stars?
The answer to that is almost completely monetary.
As one person well-versed with Welsh rugby said this week, the money you get for the South Africa game is better than the money you don’t currently have.
But what price will Wales pay on Saturday?
This is a team with emotional scar tissue and then some. Eighteen Test defeats in a row, finally ended this summer with victory over Japan in Kobe.
Another victory over the Brave Blossoms this autumn has been bookended by heavy defeats to Argentina and New Zealand – conceding 52 points in each.
There have been, three games into the Steve Tandy era, shoots of encouragement. Literally anything green in Welsh rugby’s arid wasteland right now is hailed as a fine harvest.
But extracting the positives could become a little bit trickier if Saturday delivers the mangled mess many expect.
The Springboks are also without a baker’s dozen of talent, but they can still pick a squad packed not only with frontline talent, but terrifying physicality.
Deep down, does anyone really want this game? Former Wales fly-half James Hook offered up that assessment earlier in the week and he isn’t wrong.
With all four regions in action, at a time when they are fighting for their survival, the optics are unfortunate to say the least.
If the adverts at the Principality Stadium last week plugging ‘Scarlets v Ospreys’ while the Welsh Rugby Union plot a way to get down to one club in the west were a little on the nose, then so too is the fact that the Welsh game can only fund three teams – but this weekend it will field five.
The Dragons have brought in a hooker on emergency loan, while the Ospreys will struggle to field a back-row given the number of forwards with Wales.
It promises to be a tough weekend.
The last time Wales clashed with the regions was the Barbarians game in 2023 – Wales’ last home game before this autumn, depending on who you ask – was at the start of Wales’ two-year downfall at Test level.
As such, the crowd for this weekend will be interesting. The WRU expect to meet targets for this match, but that doesn’t equal a sell-out.
There’s also some anecdotal tales of tickets being given away for all the matches. Shifting tickets certainly has been difficult this year.
Whatever money is made from the match – with about 60 per cent of the WRU’s turnover coming from hosting senior internationals in Cardiff – will go back into the professional game.
The WRU will feel they can’t win, given they didn’t arrange an out-of-window Test last year. That was the exception to the rule though.
Wales have continually played matches outside of the window, usually against the world’s best.
Rarely do they look at the fixtures from a rugby perspective, rather than a money-making one.
Warren Gatland used to talk about wanting to play the best teams on a regular basis, but it’s no coincidence that the one time Wales chose the fixtures with a little more thought – starting with Scotland in 2018 to ease their way in – they won all four matches for the first time, winning a Grand Slam and reaching number one in the world months later.
You can’t say this weekend’s fixture plays as kindly to the national team’s fortunes as that Scotland clash.
The WRU – as has been their go-to recently – say the fixture was arranged by a previous regime. Pencilled in before Covid.
At some point, the question becomes simple; is the money worth it?
The value of that will only become apparent after this weekend, as will the price Wales’ five professional teams will pay.
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