WRU unveils new department to transform Welsh rugby talent and fight off England

Welsh Rugby Union technical director Rhys Long has unveiled an ambitious new talent network aimed at transforming how Wales identifies, develops and refines its next generation of rugby stars.

With Welsh rugby struggling to compete at international level, its professional game facing significant financial and structural challenges, and talented youngsters increasingly being attracted across the border by English schools and clubs, Long believes the country must fundamentally rethink how it develops talent.

His answer begins with a simple admission that the WRU does not have a sufficiently joined-up understanding of its own players.

“At the moment, we have lots of conversations about players right across the whole pathway, from an 11-year-old all the way through to a senior international," Long tells WalesOnline.

"We have lots of information on all of those players that literally is everywhere. So it's in some people's heads, it's on documents, it's on drives, it's on videos, and none of it is coordinated.

“We have lots of good conversations with people in the field on talent. We have good conversations with Welsh schools, colleges, but none of it is coordinated. So this is all about how do we understand and recognise where our talent lives and how best to connect with that."

As a result the WRU is recruiting for the lead role in a new talent and insight department which will identify, retain, discover and develop present and potential professional players for the men’s and women’s game in Wales.

Welsh rugby’s new ‘Head of Talent & Insight’ will be supported by the latest technology available to develop living depth charts for players from the ages of 14 and upwards and build an exhaustive record of each individual.

Argentics (AI) is expected to form part of the WRU's wider approach, with the union recruiting a dedicated Rugby AI Lead alongside specialists in talent and data analysis.

The aim is to use technology to help make sense of information gathered across Welsh rugby, identify patterns in player development and give coaches a more complete picture of potential.

Rather than replacing the judgement of coaches and scouts, the system is intended to support their assessments and help ensure promising players are not overlooked.

“Through modern player trajectory modelling, utilising the latest online capabilities, and evidence-led decision-making, the role will continually improve Welsh rugby’s ability to identify, retain, develop and accelerate future professional and international players in unison with our professional clubs," he said.

“It will provide coaches and executive leaders with the intelligence to make better player and talent decisions."

The initiative comes as English private schools and clubs continue to pursue promising Welsh youngsters, raising questions about whether the domestic game can offer a pathway capable of keeping more of its best prospects in Wales.

Long believes the answer starts with understanding players better, not simply judging them on their performances as teenagers, but identifying the characteristics that could help them reach the highest level later in their careers.

His ambition is to give Welsh rugby a better understanding of where its talent is, how it develops and what the game must do to convert more of that potential into professional players and international success.

The new department will bring together information currently scattered across the game, with Long drawing on his experience of designing and implementing a similar talent and insight programme during his time with the Football Association.

“Our new data scientist and rugby AI lead will combine to build player models, identify emerging talent and changing trajectories, using automated intelligence and develop tools that will strengthen human judgement and decision-making," he said.

“The department will continually monitor technological advances and translate these into practical applications in a way that is uniquely Welsh."

The plan includes developing living depth charts for players aged 14 and upwards, alongside records of performance, potential and progression. Information will be gathered from coaches, schools, clubs, parents and contacts across the global game, with technology helping identify patterns and track development over time.

For a smaller union with limited financial resources, Long believes a more connected approach is essential.

“We can't employ 50 scouts to scour the world for all of our talent and who might be Welsh qualified," he said.

"We have to have people who can use tools to help them discover that talent, but also people who've got relationships that connect the whole system together.

“If you look at some of the challenger brands of Brentford and Brighton, if you look at some of the work that's happening in the NRL, they've really embraced this.

"We have to do things differently in Wales because we can't operate like an England football team. We can't operate like a Premier League team with the money that they've got. We have to use these different tools to our advantage.

"One of our biggest competitive advantages is we might not have the amount of staff, but we do have a real huge community inside of Wales that really wants to help. We've just got to connect all of that intelligence together.

“For me, what I've taken from working in that system is actually how do you do things a little bit differently compared to some of your major rivals and find an edge.

"If we can consolidate all of that information so we can put those coaches with the best talent earlier, which is the whole point of the talent insight strategy, we can get back to developing players better than everyone else.”

That means working more closely with coaches throughout the Welsh game, including those involved with Dewar Shield teams, to share knowledge and develop a more consistent understanding of what the future Welsh player might look like.

Long is keen to stress that this does not mean imposing a single style of rugby on every club or region.

"How do I work with our Dewar Shield teams, invite them in, work with the coaches, get their opinions on players, and also start to influence them a little bit on how we see the future Welsh player and what that can look like," he said.

“I know a lot of your readers will be going, 'Oh, yeah. Here's Rhys Long. He wants everyone playing the same way, and every player to look the same.'

"We don't. Every single player will look differently.

"I want Aberavon to be playing different rugby to Cardiff. I want the Scarlets to be playing different rugby to the Dragons. That variety makes Welsh rugby what it is.

“But what we need to start doing is talking in similar terms, looking at talent in the same way, so we can actually say, 'Right, who are our best players that we might need to invest in in the future?

"What are their development areas that I might need to put a Mark Breeze or a Neil Jenkins with to help them develop and expedite their development?"

A key part of that approach will be understanding why some players who dominate as teenagers go on to reach the professional game, while others who appear equally promising fall short of expectations.

Long wants coaches to look beyond current performances and physical advantages when assessing young players, pointing to the unpredictable development paths of Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric and Tomas Francis.

“What you're looking for is potential markers, not performance markers at 13, 14, 15, and that gets lost sometimes because coaches, mums and dads are looking at who's in the best team, who's winning the Junior Shield, who's winning the under-18s league, who's winning the ACE league," he said.

"It's actually their resilience to setbacks. It's some of their ways that they learn and their adaptability to learn and how they take charge of their own career and how diligent they are at their extras.

"They're the kind of potential markers you look for further down because the performances might come at a much later development rate.”

The WRU also wants to reduce the loss of knowledge when players move between schools, clubs, academies and representative teams, or when coaches leave their roles.

Long believes a more complete record of a player's development would help the union and professional clubs make better decisions about the coaching and resources young players need.

“It doesn't matter if the coach that they've been working with for the last three years leaves the system, we should have information on those players," he said.

"That currently isn't there, and that currently doesn't help us when we're starting to profile what kind of players or what kind of resources we should be using to help players develop and become the best players they can possibly be.

“We need to have really good information when we go into meetings with our pro clubs around their academy players and around their first-team players because ultimately, we need to equip everyone in Wales to understand where your best talent is and how we all work together to best develop them.”

The strategy will also extend to Welsh-qualified players overseas, including youngsters in England and further afield. Long believes Wales should not ignore talent simply because it is developing outside the country, but insists that identifying exiles cannot replace investment in homegrown players.

“I don't think we should be leaving any talent on the table," he said.

"You'd be stupid not to find a kid in New Zealand, find a kid playing in England, repatriate them, or a kid who lives in the Netherlands or France. We have to realise that we do have a player base.

“But I am a really passionate believer of talent development in Wales, because ultimately that is the only thing that we can have a say on.

"If you're relying on someone else to do it and just have a really good scouting network, I really think we're going to struggle in the future because we're not investing enough time and energy into converting our own players and developing our own players.”

Long says he regularly hears from parents whose children have been invited to attend open days across the border, while there is a determination within the WRU not to miss out on the likes of Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and Kepu Tuipulotu in the future.

Former England U20s backrower Kane James' decision to play for Wales was a step in the right direction for the WRU.

“Why are the English private schools coming after all of our talent?," said Long.

"Why am I getting daily phone calls from mums and dads saying that their 13-year-olds, their 14-year-olds, their 15-year-olds are being asked to attend English private schools' open days, because we produce really, really good, talented boys and girls? They wouldn't be coming if we didn't.

"What we're not seeing at the moment is the conversion rate of that talent into our domestic game and our professional game.”

The WRU's longer-term ambition is to agree on what a Welsh player pathway should look like over the next decade, including the characteristics it wants to identify and develop. That will mean accounting for the different development patterns of the men's and women's games, as well as the physical and technical demands future players will face.

“What does the game need to look for, for the player that might mature in 2035?," he said.

"We don't actually know. So that's part of this talent strategy, to be able to start to come to a consensus of what are we actually profiling, what are we looking for and what are we developing?

“We've got to make sure we convert as many of that top talent as we can, to become British Lions, good professional players and good Celtic Challenge players, to allow us to thrive on the international stage.”

Long accepts that the full impact of the strategy will take years to become apparent, although he expects earlier improvements in communication, talent identification and access to specialist coaching.

For the WRU, the ultimate test will be whether a better understanding of its players translates into more of them reaching the professional game and representing Wales at the highest level.

Long believes the country has the talent to achieve that. The challenge is making sure more of it reaches its potential.

“We are a small nation with a huge amount of talented rugby players," he said.

"If I didn't think we could get back to developing players better than everyone else, I wouldn't be here.”