Yet these bureaucratic wrangles disguise a deeper malaise. Rugby is losing its place in the cultural mainstream in Wales. Welsh rugby in its pomp – the 1960s and 70s in particular – was a vivid representation of a way of life. The game was played primarily in south Wales; the great clubs hailed from Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Llanelli, Neath, Pontypool, Pontypridd and Bridgend (plus a star-studded exiles team at London Welsh). It was a largely amateur game and encapsulated the bleak but passionate industrial life of the valleys. It gave voice, literally, to a world founded on coal, iron and steel.