sport news IAN HERBERT: Wales NEED Gareth Bale to stick around even after World Cup ... trends now

Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey were shepherded past journalists by the Wales FA’s head of PR, Ian Gwyn Hughes, and when the team bus pulled away, both players remained an enigma.

Ramsey had not publicly discussed the World Cup once out here and Bale did so only to fulfil FIFA obligations, before or after the country’s three matches.

Bale did tell the BBC that it wasn’t over for him. ‘I’ll keep going as long as I can and as long as I’m wanted,’ he said. ‘We have a (European) qualification campaign starting in March. I hope to be involved, yes.’

Strange to say, perhaps, after a desperately disappointing tournament in which Bale and Ramsey’s struggles dominated the Wales narrative, but they should still be ‘wanted’.

A Euro 2024 qualification group with Albania, Latvia, Turkey and, first up, Croatia, with two spots available for the Germany finals, will be a different world to this kind of intensity. The aura these two players create and the tone they set are reasons why they should be persuaded to stay, as a new generation is brought on.

Bale seems sick of the media, palming away a TV camera which was shoved in his face as he walked from the bench to the field at the end of the loss to England, but his team-mates find his love of the Welsh camp utterly infectious.

Managing these two superstars cannot have been easy for Rob Page, whatever he may say to the contrary. Page has been their boss in name alone, these past two weeks. It is why there was no way he would have made one or both of them impact substitutes against England, as many Wales fans had wanted.

Now, he should have the licence to use them as he sees fit, even

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