Still holding out for heroes – can the Welsh keep faith in their rugby team?

Mollie Williams

You didn’t have to be a fan of rugby to feel dismayed by the results of the Six Nations.

Loss after loss, followed by a sliver of hope lining our cloudy games against Ireland and Scotland, all to be viscerally cut down by England felt like a stone-cold stab to the heart.

Personally, in the lead up to the game I made the mistake of believing it would be a similar game to the World Cup playoff of 2015, a belief I resigned to maniacal laughter at around the 50th minute.

The hangover felt even worse in the following days. I’m currently studying in Northern Ireland, and as everyone around me geared up for St Patrick’s Day celebrations, all I wanted to do is rot in my bedroom and wait for the storm to pass.

Coincidentally however, St Patrick did console me that day – in a pub in Bangor (the one here, not the one there), I watched two secondary schools compete for the Ulster Cup on the tv and I was blessed with a scoreboard that read ‘RSA 15 – 24 WAL’. While my father labelled my shallow solace as desperate, I could only be grateful to Wallace High School for evoking an image that comforted my broken Welsh heart.

After a 40-minute jog the following day, I resolved to find my hope and sense of place again. ‘Yma o Hyd’ I thought to myself – and we’re not going anywhere.

Which brings me to the other heartbreak of that weekend – the unfortunately common occurrence of the feeble Welsh voice.

This is not a blanket statement (for there were firmer and supportive voices regrouping), but the most heartbreaking – the comments suggesting we relegate ourselves to play against Georgia and Portugal, the comments suggesting we now must lean into becoming a football nation, the comments that want us to cut off a two-year-old nose to spite a 144-year-old face.

And this isn’t a new thing – despite the early morning games, and the fact that I was supposed to be completing my first year at Bangor University (which unsurprisingly I went on to fail), I watched every single minute of our 2019 Rugby World Cup campaign.

I never had any doubt of our success then, although it sometimes felt like certain people around me in Y Glôb did. When Fiji scored two tries against us quick into that game, I didn’t break a sweat. I knew we would win – I just had to wait to see it happen, and then it did.

Much more hauntingly, in our game against France, when we slipped behind, the boys at the table in front of me started shouting ‘Gatland out’ (which despite the perspective we have now, was quite premature) and of course we turned it around.

We finished our campaign with a badly timed penalty – and the next day, I got Alun Wyn Jones’ name tattooed on me to commemorate all of the best parts of that tournament.

There’s been a building issue within Welsh rugby fans over the last ten years (although it may have existed for longer; this is just my own frame of reference). I understand that no fan wants their team to lose, and sport is incredibly emotive, but we seem to be holding our own enjoyment captive to Wales’ success.

To me, being a fan is both about winning and making sure I have a good time watching the game – this is why I still shout ‘pass to Shane’ when it’s quiet at Neath matches. It’s why when I went to my first and only international game against Italy in March 2022 and we lost, I stayed in the stadium to watch the Italians celebrate – I knew it was bad for us, but the Italians looked so pleased with themselves so I was very happy for their win.

I am not the first, and I certainly won’t be the last person to talk about the issue with the WRU’s ticket pricing. If the tickets were cheaper, I would be at every international game shouting ‘pass to Shane’ from the stands, and that opinion spreads far and wide.

I often find myself looking at the tv and wondering why I can’t hear our fans – win or lose, we’re still Welsh, and we still have 15 men on the pitch who are trying their best to give us the results we want. Even in the worst of times, we, the fans, don’t tend to blame our players, we blame our coaches and the snobby organisation that seem further and further out of touch with rugby fans every passing day. So if it’s not the players faults, why don’t we sing anymore?

When I heard English fans sing ‘Swing Low’ through the television speakers on March 15th, I felt like the only person in the world yelling back a vulgar response about the location of chariots – and I was in Belfast.

Despite noticing these morose tendencies of what I would generalise as the insecurities of being a small nation next to a much bigger, louder country, I still have hope and I still believe we’ll make it, both as a nation and a rugby team.

In rugby particularly, it’s going to be an uphill battle that we have to mentally prepare ourselves for. Even if the WRU turned around tomorrow and implemented all of the suggestions and feedback that we’ve been crying out for, without the fan spirit, we don’t have our team.

We need our players to still be proud to play for Wales, despite everything, and we need to be proud of them too. We need to sing; we need to shout, and we need to be proud of ourselves for being Welsh.

On Monday night, I went to a poetry event here in Belfast and as a joke (stemming from the fact that my poems usually revolve around Wales), the organisers put up the score from the England match and encouraged people to write a poem inspired by it.

Let me tell you now, they regretted it. Between the heckling, the choice words I borrowed from Goldie Lookin’ Chain, the poem (well, rap) I read where I cuttingly dissed the organisers, and the reminder of who has been the only host nation of the Rugby World Cup to not make it out of the group stages, I won.

On my way out of the door, I ended with “we could not be at a lower moment right now, and you just kicked us.” I am prouder now to be a Welsh person than when I was getting Alun Wyn Jones’ name tattooed onto my leg because at least now I know what it means to be Welsh – we lose big sometimes, but I know that when we win again, we will win big.

I only think it’s a crying shame that I wasn’t around when Owain Glyndŵr was fighting his battles.

Mollie Williams is currently studying an MA Creative Writing at Queen’s University Belfast