Welsh rugby at the threshold of collapse

Wales have not won a home game in the Six Nations since February 2022

The curtain is about to fall on another shocking year of failure in Welsh rugby.

There was a hope that things would not deteriorate in 2025 after a haunting 2024 but that anticipation soon evaporated.

Terms like ‘laughing stock’ have been used to describe the current crisis state of Welsh rugby. Events of the past 12 months make it hard to disagree with that assessment.

There have been record defeats, wooden spoons, high-profile resignations, Cardiff going into administration, top players leaving Welsh domestic rugby and yet more squabbles between the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the regions.

“Welsh rugby is on the precipice.” That was the verdict of former Ospreys head coach Sean Holley on Scrum V. Again, hard to disagree with those sentiments.

The Wales men’s international side is regarded as the pinnacle of Welsh rugby.

Having not recorded a Test victory in 2024, two wins this year against Japan and staying in the world’s top 12 to avoid a harder World Cup pool draw might be deemed as progress. Not really.

In 2025, Wales have had three men’s head coaches, extended their unwanted record against tier one countries to 18 successive Test defeats, suffered a second successive Six Nations clean sweep of defeats and been humiliated in Cardiff with record home losses against England, Argentina and South Africa.

Played 10, lost 10. That was the dismal record of Wales’ two national sides in the 2025 Six Nations over the space of 86 difficult days.

From the 43-0 Friday night Paris mauling suffered by the men’s side in January, to the 44-12 hammering inflicted by Italy’s women in late April, it proved a miserable three months as both sides finished rock bottom.

After Warren Gatland resigned in February following defeat by Italy in Rome, Matt Sherratt took over as interim boss for the rest of the Six Nations and the summer tour of Japan before Steve Tandy was appointed prior to the autumn internationals.

There might have been a change of personnel but the chastening days will live long in the memory for all the wrong reasons.

It was hard to see how losing 68-14 and conceding 10 tries against England at the Principality Stadium in March could be topped.

That was before the 73-0 loss at the hands of South Africa at the end of November, the second worst result in Welsh rugby’s history. Those two days have been among the bleakest known.

There was no surprise when there was a record low of two players, captain Jac Morgan and scrum-half Tomos Williams, named in the British and Irish Lions touring party to Australia.

Morgan came on as a replacement and produced a controversial, crucial clearout in the winning score that sealed the second Test and the series.

But apart from that moment, Welsh rugby seemed like a watching bystander to the combined success of England, Ireland and Scotland.

Welsh rugby’s governing body announced in October they want to cut one of the four professional sides by reducing the number to three, with licences to be granted in Cardiff and one each for the west and east.

Negotiations have continued and the WRU had been hoping a decision could be made by consensus before the end of the year but that was not achieved.

One solution proposed seeing Ospreys owners buying Cardiff and another possibility is a straight shootout between Scarlets and Ospreys.

If things are not resolved, the process will go out to tender and that could take six months.

So the process could still be ongoing in the spring when Wales will be attempting to avoid a third clean sweep of defeats in the Six Nations.

(BBC sport)