Now World Rugby Has To Help Out The Needy

Wales and lions legend

- Shane Williams

The financial situation rugby in Wales is facing is bleak – but the Welsh Rugby Union and their players are taking the right steps to ensure there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

It is only right and proper that the players take pay cuts in these extraordinary circumstances. Wales head coach Wayne Pivac and chief executive Martyn Phillips have already done that and they are to be applauded.

Now it’s over to the players to follow suit. I’m sure they’ll do the right thing and to be honest, there is no real alternative. We have to do this for the good of our game.

As a player there is always a great deal of importance you have to place on your wages. In professional sport that is often seen as greed or arrogance because of the sums involved, but that is not necessarily the case. Rugby players are like everyone else – they have their jobs, mortgages and bills to worry about and you can’t blame them for being concerned about their monthly pay packet.

We must remember that while the best Test players do get paid very well, that is not the case across the board in rugby. There are many who will not be on huge wages and the young men coming through the ranks right now will have worries. We must look at this situation as a big picture.

Rugby is most certainly not Premier League football.

For every Alun Wyn Jones and Liam Williams, there is an academy player or someone who is just starting out in the game. It is they who will be impacted most by a pay cut.

Luckily for them, things are very different now to when I was playing and the senior Wales players lookout for those below them. Alun Wyn is a key man in doing that.