All we need now is the inevitable Rhys Henry call up and I guess we should all just bunker down for the rapture.

Quite.

The period around 2013-14 - when senior WRU executives would literally sit next to Western Mail journalists as they bashed out their latest hagiography - is a major factor in the state of Welsh rugby today.

Those people will never recognise that, of course. But it doesn't make it less true

Yes she will. Definitely.

Maybe wear a motorbike helmet when you give it to her?

I'm an absolute riot at parties, you know.

But thanks for foregrounding my miserabilist mini opus!

Welsh Rugby: What Went Wroger?

"Remember when the WRU got to the end of the 70s, made no plans for the future and assumed they'd just magic great players out of thin air at will? Then had a 25-year horrorshow?

Well. They did it again."

Empty seats are valleys.

Difficult to see - given the laws now - how that could have been anything other than red. BOD seemed pretty resigned to it on the first replay.

Yep. Disappointing.

Lomu didn't play the Wales team of 2008-2019.

I mean, Ireland's team tonight have a combined age of 240,000,000 years, and most people have this as a coin toss.

We don't like to talk about it.

Classy, see?

It's crushingly predictabls.

Professional rugby union is 30 years old. For virtually all that time, the WRU have wanted complete control over it without paying for it.

They eventually exorcised those Halloween demons, exactly 10 years ago, by beating Australia, again at Twickenham, to become the first team to successfully defend the RWC. 2/