sport news Wales seek a shock on the pitch in the Six Nations amid shockwaves off it trends now
An unprecedented off-field storm has engulfed Welsh rugby in the last 10 days.
Shocking allegations of sexism and misogyny have rocked the game. Chief executive Steve Phillips resigned as the crisis escalated.
WRU bigwigs faced questions from Welsh Assembly members over the workplace culture at the organisation. Wales’ players were also quizzed.
Then, to top off the WRU’s week from hell, their banning of Tom Jones’ classic Delilah from being sung by the choir at Principality Stadium saw them hit the headlines for the wrong reasons again.
Frankly, it has been a disastrous two weeks. Now, a different sort of problem is on the horizon as world No 1 side Ireland arrive in Cardiff today for a mouth-watering start to the Six Nations.
Warren Gatland will hope to put Wales' turbulent two weeks behind them for the Six Nations
Wales captain Ken Owens said yesterday: ‘It’s disappointing what has come out of the past fortnight. I’d be lying if I said we hadn’t been talking about it within the squad. But we are in our own bubble and the only thing we can do is concentrate on the rugby. At the end of the day, that’s what we are here to do.’
An external taskforce has been appointed to look into the historic cases of sexism and misogyny at the WRU after Nigel Walker — Phillips’ replacement as interim chief executive — and chairman Ieuan Evans admitted a blind eye had been turned to such problems at the governing body in the past.
Centre George North added: ‘Some really important issues have been raised. We will have to leave that to Ieuan and Nigel and the taskforce to deal with so we don’t have anything else like this happen again in the WRU.
‘The issues raised are important to us as players and as a union. In terms of focus, we’ve got the world’s No 1 team
