Welsh rugby writer Gareth Roberts looks at the background to Mike Ruddock's exit and the continued fallout
Judging the mood of the hordes of Welsh fans that pile into Ireland for Six Nations games has never been a major issue. But the fact it's higher up the pub-and-club discussion agenda than what sort of reception Gavin Henson can expect tomorrow tells you this RBS Six Nations clash will be played against a backdrop so rare as to be unique.
Forget Brian O'Driscoll. Forget Henson. You can even forget Charlotte Church on this occasion. And for that matter, you can also forget the game because the mood of Welsh fans is grim and only two words will dominate their discussions up to kick-off: Mike Ruddock.
More pertinently, whatever happened to Mike Ruddock? What indeed? Well, one thing's for certain, when he was coach, Wales won a truly stylish Grand Slam.
And therein, folks, lies the problem. For those of us born Welsh it is the bitterest of ironies that after craving such an achievement for 27 often grim years, its deliverance ended up exposing the nation as incapable of handling success.
The events of the years between 1978 and 2005 left no one in doubt that while still capable of producing world class players, Wales were more adept at putting their gutter-class in-fighting skills on display.
But surely only an anthropologist with a penchant for forensic psychoanalysis could have predicted that the Welsh nation's tendency towards failure-fuelled self-destruction would go into overdrive in the wake of a Grand Slam.
However, why and how Ruddock has ended up looking for a job while Wales remain in the hunt to retain their Six Nations title has sparked the sort of inquest that followed Roy Keane's acrimonious split with Mick McCarthy.
It is no exaggeration to say that the role of national coach is the most high profile position in Welsh public life.
Unlike First Minister Rhodri Morgan, Ruddock did not preside over health, education and other affairs of state. But Morgan and the rest of Wales' politicians can but envy the volume of column inches and airwave time dedicated to what has been dubbed Ruddockgate - and for that matter the international attention it has generated.
And as this story has legs that are likely to run as long and hard as a New Zealander in pursuit of the All Black number seven jersey, all should be prepared for a few more surprises along the way.
WRU chief executive Steve Lewis is the target of much vitriol in Welsh rugby. Questions are also being asked of what role, if any, team manager Alan Phillips played in the affair.
More importantly for many, how culpable were the players, in particular skipper Gareth "Alfie" Thomas, and caretaker coach Scott Johnson, has yet to be fully explored or explained.
What the WRU's 245 member clubs will make of the mess is another thing altogether. They are angry and determined to get all the facts, but likely to be disappointed in the short term.
Ruddock was hugely popular with grass-roots clubs and that was before he succeeded dour Kiwi Steve Hansen as head coach, though even that move caused controversy with Llanelli Scarlets' Gareth Jenkins tipped for the role before the WRU head-hunted Ruddock.
There was a huge out-pouring of anger at Jenkins' public humiliation, but in Ruddock the WRU at least had a figure who was guaranteed a honeymoon period that relieved the pressures for instant success another foreigner, such as Johnson, would have faced.
The only problem was that Ruddock inherited Hansen's personnel while Jenkins had made it clear he would take the job only if he could bring in his own support staff.
And make no mistake, the squad and set-up on the day Ruddock walked through the door was very much Hansen's baby, albeit with the other parent (a word he used this week) still in place. That other parent was Johnson, whose bond with Alfie is best described by the Aussie himself.
"I first met Alfie in a bar in Bridgend a few years ago when no one here would touch him," Johnson said. "He had been ostracised by the rugby community for whatever reasons - reasons I don't know or care about.
"I can think of two conversations in my life that probably changed my life and that happened to be one of them.
"It was honest, open and probably in some aspects I saw myself in Alfie."
Feel free to read that last sentence again - in fact, don't read on until you have fully taken on board the message it contains.
Johnson and Thomas had a bond that went beyond sporting affairs and it was replicated throughout the squad.
Flanker Martyn Williams and outhalf Stephen Jones also look upon Johnson as the best thing since rugby coaching was invented. Williams this week described Johnson as "definitely the best coach I have ever had".
Against such a backdrop it's difficult to imagine Ruddock was ever going to be able to stamp his authority on the Wales coaching set-up and if truth be acknowledged, the campaign against him from within began even half-way through the 2005 Grand Slam charge.
That was when player power began to spiral out of control. No one disliked Ruddock, but feelings in the camp were so pro-Johnson that the former Leinster coach became, in the players' minds, a peripheral figure.
At the same time, Ruddock was earning the public accolades the players felt were due to Johnson and themselves. Ruddock's reward for the Slam was an OBE and despite publicly praising his entire coaching team and all the squad at every opportunity, it was clearly a situation the players could not stomach.
Worse still for Ruddock, he was presented with a contract that didn't bear his legal adviser's scrutiny. Money wasn't the problem, but issues over health insurance, grievance and disciplinary procedures were. So too were moves for the WRU to exert as yet unspecified influence over selection matters.
Still Ruddock had accepted the job and last summer shook hands on a deal that, with win-bonuses, could have earned him upwards of £500,000 through to the 2007 World Cup only to be frustrated by unresolvable differences over the small print.
Johnson famously declared he never signs contracts and because Ruddock's remained unsigned, others coming out of contract had to endure months of uncertainty.
And that's where former WRU group chief executive David Moffett and Lewis come into play. Because whether or not Ruddock was the victim of a conspiracy from within the coaching and playing ranks, the governing body could and should have knocked heads together and secure the coaching regime's services until 2008.
Lewis is taking his share of the flak for that, but Moffett was in charge when all of this started and it was his words that drew attention to another worrying aspect of the even bigger picture in all this.
Moffett departed in December, lauded as the man who restructured the WRU's crippling Millennium Stadium-related £70m debts into a more manageable repayment schedule.
But having swallowed without question the spin Moffett and Co put on his efforts, the Welsh media and public were last week found themselves digesting a frank and rather worrying statement from the man himself.
After expressing a belief that Ruddockgate should be dealt with rapidly, he said, "The other thing I would urge caution on is I think there have been some late arrivals in the board intent on changing the way the union is run.
"I think the bank would be mortified by that. The potential for the bank to step in is very real if they feel that things are off the rails.
"Having spent three years restructuring the debt so that it was affordable to the group, to put that in jeopardy now would be a mistake."
For those who need help reading between the lines, Moffett's message is this: If there's a knee-jerk reaction that sees leading WRU employee Lewis and chairman Pickering kicked out over an issue of rugby politics, the financial position is so precarious that the banks wouldn't tolerate the instability created by such a move.
That may explain why, for now, Lewis and Pickering have the board's backing. However, it doesn't explain how and why those two men - and Moffett - allowed Ruddockgate to fester in the first place.
So if Welsh fans aren't in their usual chippy mood this weekend, you'll understand why. They love their rugby, but at this moment, not their team. Or their union. And if Wales perform poorly tomorrow . . . don't say you haven't been warned.
Tuesday, Feb 14th (St Valentine's Day): WRU announced Ruddock is quitting for family reasons. But a careless official leaves a crisis-management crib sheet under the nose of a journalist and the contents fuel speculation that Ruddock was forced out.
Wednesday, Feb 15th: No one on the street or in the media is buying the "family reasons" line and talk of player-power ousting the Grand Slam coach spreads like wildfire.
Sunday, Feb 19th: Wales captain Gareth "Alfie" Thomas becomes embroiled in a feisty televised debate with ex-Wales skippers Eddie Butler and Jonathan Davies, during which he admits he and his team-mates had issues with Ruddock over the responsibilities of the coach's role, but not his coaching ability.
Monday, Feb 20th: News breaks that Thomas was rushed to hospital shortly after leaving BBC Wales' studios, suffering from temporary partial paralysis caused by what was later diagnosed as a burst blood vessel in a neck artery.
Tuesday, Feb 21th: Ruddock sets out his stall to the WRU board, who later give unanimous backing to chief executive Steve Lewis in the affair. Caretaker Wales coach Scott Johnson reveals the starting line-up to face Ireland and Thomas' deputy as captain Michael Owen refuses to answer questions about Ruddockgate.
- GARETH ROBERTS
