Come Fly With Me....

By Lestyn (02/06/03)
June 2 2003

Player strike, no player strike, injuries galore and just to top off a missed flight to Auckland. All in all just a normal day for the Welsh rugby team.

The typical WRU inspired farce began this morning, when the long running player insurance feud saw the team fail to board their coach and head to Heathrow. It was only a last ditch meeting between the players representative Scott Quinnell and David Moffett that saved the tour before it had even started. So after a two hour delay, the the squad eventually started the journey down the M4.

Hurrah! off to New Zealand then, or not. The bus was delayed at Junction 13 eastbound, after an accident. This saw the squad miss the check in at the airport and the plane took off without them in all to familiar to Welsh rugby comical fashion.

Unfortunately the bad news doesn't finish there, three (in my opinion) of the best players have been ruled out of the tour with injury. Iestyn Harris who was a class above everyone else in red on Saturday, is disastrously out of the tour with a shoulder injury. Shanklin or Parker will now contest for the number twelve shirt, Shanklin would be my preference.

Gavin "look at my hair Hair gel" Henson has been called up as a replacement. Gareth Delve will also miss out. Delvey has had a recurrence of the shoulder injury that has blighted his short career. Swansea's Jonathan Thomas has been called up instead.

Another blow could be Gareth Thomas. Alfie is not travelling with the team (when they actually do ) due to "personal reasons". Whatever those reasons may be lets just hope he sorts them out soon, because there could just be a record score on the cards.

Can it get any worse? Probably....