Phil Bennett: The Autobiography - Phil Bennett

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to be alongside him on this incredible journey.

      He was shrewd, too. All Welsh coaches take it as read that they will suffer a lot of stick from former internationals. It goes with the territory. It’s not simply the regular voices in the media; there are always plenty of ex-internationals who will gladly be stirred by a poor performance into saying that the current coach has got it all wrong and things were so much better in their day. It’s not that all ex-Wales players have a mean, vindictive streak. It’s just that we care enough to want the team to do well.

      Henry was obviously aware that this could present a problem for him and as he was an outsider the criticism might become harsher than normal if things went badly.

      His solution was to invite a whole host of former internationals to attend a series of trial matches at Swansea one Saturday afternoon and then ask them to sit in on selection. Glad to be of service – or perhaps flattered – we all trooped along. There must have been around thirty of us. We enjoyed a pleasant lunch in the clubhouse before the action and then took our seats.

      Henry had asked us all to concentrate on our own particular positions. I sat alone in the stand, with David Watkins sitting not far from me, and we watched the four guys vying for the Wales No. 10 shirt. It was hard work as we were required to watch one player constantly whatever action was taking place. But I also felt it was a useful exercise in establishing how we regarded the players in our positions. They were under real scrutiny. Afterwards, everyone was invited to join Henry for a selection meeting at which all the positions and various candidates were discussed in detail. JPR Williams gave his view on the four full-backs, JJ Williams and Ieuan Evans chatted about the wings, and so on right through from 1 to 15. Henry listened to all shades of opinion and made occasional notes. Finally, he thanked everyone for coming and every ex-international in that room went home thinking they were now part of the inner sanctum.

      They weren’t, of course. I don’t think for a minute that Henry pored over our opinions. He probably folded his notes, put them into his pocket, and promptly forgot all about them. I don’t imagine our musings made the slightest difference to the Wales team he eventually picked. But the point is that he had charmed us, won us over, and made everyone feel part of the action. There was an element of an elaborate con trick to try to muzzle his potential critics and for a time it probably worked. Yet even then there were certain things about that afternoon that made me suspicious. He wanted to charm us, but he also wanted to put a few of us in our place. Henry asked me which outside-half had impressed me. I told him Neil Jenkins should be his first choice but that Shaun Connor had caught my eye and explained why. Henry stroked his chin and said, ‘That’s interesting.’ Then he turned to Leigh Jones, one of his advisors at the time and now coach of Newport, and asked, ‘What do you think of Connor, Leigh?’ ‘Not up to it,’ said Jones, without looking up. Henry glanced back at me, with a smile on his lips and then moved the discussion on.

      I felt hurt by that. Henry appeared to be trying to de-value my opinion in front of a large and illustrious gathering. I thought, ‘Who the hell does this guy think he is?’ But I bit my tongue as I genuinely felt there was a useful point to the whole meeting and I didn’t want to be seen as someone who was trying to undermine things. Within a week or two, Henry had developed his elaborate trick a little farther. He invited the same bunch of ex-internationals to the Vale of Glamorgan Country Club and Hotel just outside Cardiff, which had become headquarters for the Wales management and the team. A grand title had been given to the project now. I think they called it ‘The Mentors’ Scheme’. Basically, this involved making every former Welsh international present a personal advisor to the man who currently played in their position. In theory, this was a perfectly good idea. I’ve always felt that current players could benefit a great deal by talking to some of the older ones. For instance, young Welsh props like Iestyn Thomas, Ben Evans and Darren Morris could learn so much from informal conversations with a legend of the front row like Graham Price, someone who has not only achieved great things but recognises the finer points of that area more deeply than anyone else and commands such complete respect.

      Henry, however, wanted to formalise that kind of relationship and guide it himself. Again, there was plenty of good food on offer and the wine flowed freely amongst the invited guests. Gareth Edwards sat and chatted to Rob Howley, while I enjoyed the company of Neil Jenkins and Stephen Jones. I knew Stephen well as I had followed his career closely since he was a young boy in Carmarthen. I had met Neil on a couple of occasions and found him a likeable bloke. Quite what I was meant to teach Neil, who had done pretty much everything in the game, I wasn’t sure, but he asked me for my phone number and I gladly gave it to him. I joked that if every he wanted a good tip on the horses he should give me a call. It was all very relaxed and light-hearted, just exactly how that kind of relationship should be if it’s going to work.

      But Henry wanted something more structured, with reports and assessments. He talked about how they did this kind of thing in New Zealand and what a good system they had in place. I had an entirely open mind and was willing to be part of anything Henry wanted to do, but three months down the line it was as if that evening had never taken place. There were no follow-up conversations with me, or any of the other mentors as far as I could gather; no one from the Welsh management ever asked for a single word or opinion on how the boys were performing or what feedback we had given them. There were no files or paperwork. The system that Henry had trumpeted simply didn’t exist.

      Looking back on it now, perhaps it was just that Henry and his large back-up team simply had too many other things on their plate to concern themselves with the mentors’ scheme. Or maybe they had second thoughts. It would have been nice to know, because the nagging thought is there in my mind that perhaps it was just a cynical exercise in silencing potential critics. Former internationals were hardly going to slate Henry if they were supposed to be in partnership with him. But the reality was that none of us were briefed by Henry or by his team manager David Pickering, any more than we were briefed by Tony Blair. It was a sham.

      In professional sport, however, the real judgements are not of a person’s sincerity. You are judged on your record. And Henry’s record throughout 1999 was incredible as he took Wales on an amazing ten-match winning streak. He restored pride and dignity to the team after the depths of a year before and I, for one, will always be grateful. Suddenly, during that summer of 1999, everyone in Wales was talking about the rugby team again and was proud of their efforts. Even the fact that two of his players – Shane Howarth and Brett Sinkinson – were New Zealanders who had no right to be in a Welsh shirt didn’t seem to matter. I felt uneasy about their presence, but like most of the Welsh media I was swept along with the euphoria of success and it took newspapers from outside Wales to expose their bogus credentials in early 2000. Looking back, I feel a certain sense of shame that I did not voice my concerns and discomfort about the two Kiwis before the Kiwigate scandal had broken and it was discovered that their grandparents had no Welsh connections after all. I admire guys like Byron Hayward who spoke up and was critical of their selection. At the time Byron’s complaints were dismissed as sour grapes because he wasn’t in the team, but he was completely right to be concerned about the tarnishing of our heritage.

      Whether Henry knew he was breaking the rules we shall perhaps never know. The International Rugby Board cleared him of misconduct and found the WRU guilty of administrative incompetence rather than cheating, but it was certainly a stain on his reputation. He misjudged the mood of a nation when he expected the public would be as flippant about the issue of Welsh qualification as he and his management team had been. The team had begun to lose its sparkle and now one of the great magician’s tricks had been exposed.

      Strangely, that summer of 1999 when Wales beat the Springboks for the first time, was the pinnacle of Henry’s achievements and influence. The World Cup of that year showed the team had already begun the descent that would finally end with that humiliating defeat to Ireland in the Six Nations of 2002.

      Part of the problem at the World Cup seemed to be that players began to believe their own publicity. They thought they were better than they were and the hard work that had led to such huge improvements was obviously on the wane. Almost every individual Welsh player at that time began to let his own standards slip. Wales lost to Samoa in the pool stages and were bundled out of the tournament in the quarterfinals by the eventual winners Australia.

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