LONG READ 'To lose one Welsh captain is unfortunate; to lose two might be considered a bit careless'

Bob Dylan was right. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Pretty much everyone had been expecting the Wales internationals Jac Morgan and Dewi Lake to depart Welsh rugby, so when the official announcement came this week, the surprise factor west of the Severn could hardly be described as being off the scale or anything like it.

As for the anger factor, that’s a different matter.

Everyone seemed to have a say, from Bangor to Bonymaen, and few seemed prepared to walk a moderate line after the news that the two Wales captains would be leaving the regional game and heading for England to play their rugby, for Gloucester.

Who’s to blame for the impending double decampment? That is the question. Many below-the-line internet commenters quickly pointed the finger at the Welsh Rugby Union, given the chaos that passes for the game in Wales right now; one or two others thought the public themselves should shoulder culpability for not attending matches in significant numbers; a few put the regional set-up in the dock.

Rightly so, it was hard to find anyone blaming Morgan and Lake themselves, with players having short careers and the Welsh professional game seemingly locked in an iron grip of depression and uncertainty.

Not unexpectedly, the governing body put out a statement after the news that the pair would leave the Ospreys at the end of the season, saying they were “striving to build a world-class system in Wales” and they wanted “Welsh talent to be part of that system”. They also expressed how they were disappointed when players left the scene in Wales.

The quotes didn’t really land well for many, who seemingly wouldn’t have objected to a few words of contrition from the union, perhaps along the lines of: “We appreciate that players are fed-up with the state of the game in Wales and the uncertainty that seems to have been with us since the final days of the Franco-Prussian war, so we can understand why two of our biggest names are heading for the exit.

Is now really the right time to be contemplating shelling out on everything listed in the union’s grand vision for the game in Wales? Can some of those just be classed as aspirations at this point, to be revisited and perhaps realised when finances improve?

“If the decisions of those players were in any way influenced by the current instability, we’d like to apologise for our role in that.

“Also, we are not sure the plan for Welsh rugby we previously outlined is the right way forward, because it will alienate a significant swathe of supporters and reduce our pathways at a time when we can ill afford to do any such thing.

“We will look again at our options for expenditure over the coming weeks, months and years and try to fund the professional game to a level that enables four teams to seriously compete.”

Such a statement would not have reversed the decisions of Lake and Morgan to leave the troubled regional scene, of course: that ship has very much left the harbour. But maybe for many, not all admittedly, it might have been a move in the right direction.

Let’s return to those expenditure choices: is now really the right time to be contemplating shelling out on everything listed in the union’s grand vision for the game in Wales? Can some of those just be classed as aspirations at this point, to be revisited and perhaps realised when finances improve?

And can the WRU’s commercial department switch into a higher gear to bring more revenue into the game in Wales, money that could go towards developing players for tomorrow?

The union should be pondering such matters. But does there exist the flexibility to contemplate that there might be another way, even as important players head out of Wales? We await the answer on that one.

As for the Ospreys, they appear to be becoming more disenchanted by the day. “Roll on some certainty. We’ve all had enough of this,” wrote their chief executive Lance Bradley on X. The surprise was the post didn’t attract three million likes or thereabouts.

You don’t have to have black blood coursing through your veins or scarlet eyeballs to find it hard to understand the fairness or logic of shedding either the Ospreys or the Scarlets from the Welsh scene

No doubt, the region has also had their fill of the obituaries for Ospreys rugby that seem to be written up with increased regularity. On Monday, it was hard to avoid those who were speculating online that the end is imminent for the south-west Wales region, who have been variously described as ‘dead’, ‘gone’ and ‘finished’, not unlike Monty Python’s Norwegian Blue parrot, perhaps.

But that pessimistic view from an Ospreys perspective is not uniform, with some declining to accept the region’s fate is anywhere near sealed and still feeling there is everything to contest in the potentially existential matters being played out in the sport in Wales.

You don’t have to have black blood coursing through your veins or scarlet eyeballs to find it hard to understand the fairness or logic of shedding either the Ospreys or the Scarlets from the Welsh scene, given how fertile the areas that the two regions cover have been over the years when it comes to the not unimportant matter of producing players for Wales.

Of course, Morgan and Lake are not the first players to have switched teams, and the absolute certainty is they won’t be the last.

But it’s the context that potentially freights the developments this week with extra significance.

What we can say for certain is that no-one at the Ospreys will under-estimate the challenge of coping without two players who have brought a huge amount on the field and off it as leaders and engaging personalities within the squad.

At openside Harri Deaves will next season likely have first dibs on the No.7 jersey worn with such distinction over the years by the likes of Marty Holah, Justin Tipuric and Morgan.

Morgan, especially, is disarmingly affable and humble with it, a player who treats everyone he meets with courtesy and respect and wears his renown lightly, much in the way another Wales captain, the late Phil Bennett, once did. He is also a world-class openside, with Lake another player pretty much every club would want on their books.

But life has to go on and the coaches will hope in Sam Parry, Lewis Lloyd and Efan Daniel they have the resources at hooker to get by, while at openside Harri Deaves will next season likely have first dibs on the No.7 jersey worn with such distinction over the years by the likes of Marty Holah, Justin Tipuric and Morgan.

Putting his hand up to provide back-up for Deaves is youngster Gwilym Evans, if his effort against Montauban in the European Challenge Cup is anything to go by, with the 22-year-old putting in 22 tackles, carrying eight times and achieving a turnover. Three of Evans’s hits were dominant affairs. In the same competition last weekend, only Exeter’s Ethan Roots managed more dominant tackles, with four. For the record, Lloyd also came up with 22 defensive interventions.

But Welsh rugby, eh?

The idea for this space had been to focus mainly on the improved performances of the regions that the second round of this season’s European competitions had seen, with the Dragons winning for the first time in 2025, Cardiff rallying to see off Ulster at the Arms Park and the Ospreys getting the job done in France. In the Champions Cup, there was also plenty to enjoy about the Scarlets’ effort in Bordeaux, with their young New Zealander Fletcher Anderson again standing out. He may have played just three games for the west Walians, but already he looks a gem.

Then came the Lake-Morgan cloudburst.

To tweak Oscar Wilde, to lose one Welsh captain is unfortunate; to lose two, well, some might consider that more than a bit careless.

Welsh rugby needs to get its act together, and quickly.