Henson Sacking Masks Far More Serious Problems



The enigma.

By Andrew Collins

April 2 2012

With both #Cardiff Blues and #Henson trending on Twitter throughout Monday, it was international news that the former Welsh international had been fired…

When Gavin Henson initially signed with the Cardiff Blues 6 months ago, this web site wrote a fairly scathing report on the Henson story so far. It was implied that he lacked the physical fitness, game time and professional attitude to succeed in the modern game. (Link at the bottom of this page.)

Yet, I do not feel any self-righteousness or a sense of ‘I told you so’ this evening, indeed, far from it. In fact, I’m actually left feeling that we need him more than he heeds us, despite yet another controversial headline.

In his brief stint with the Blues (8 games), Henson featured predominantly at full back, with two appearances at centre and his last ill-fated cameo on the wing against Glasgow. He was not once played in his favoured position of outside half.

This, despite, announcing he wanted to compete with Dan Parks upon signing and the latter being widely regarded as playing very poorly throughout the season.

It was no secret that Parks would be leaving the Blues at the end of the season, but yet not once have the coaches considered given Henson a chance to demonstrate what he could do there in Parks’ absence. Who knows, we may have learnt something about the former Welsh International that would’ve saved us dipping into the transfer market for Jason Tovey.

In those 8 games, Gav didn’t do a great deal. He huffed and puffed here and there, made a few good tackles and organised the defence relatively well. He made some errors, did some things well. Most would argue that we don’t need him. However underneath all the Henson ‘saga’ something far more important and worrying is happening.

Ultimately, it was obvious from the outset that Henson was never going to have his contract renewed. Perhaps the real danger of trying him at 10 was that it may actually work, and we’d have had to admit that we simply couldn’t afford a player of his calibre anymore.

What he did on the plane was, needless to say, stupid, immature, pathetic, irresponsible and downright dull. In his infamous autobiography, Henson condemns the lack of professionalism shown by Swansea players when he was an academy product growing up, saying their drinking habits and behaviour were childish. He implies that they were relics in the modern day game and poor role models for aspiring stars and supporters.

To see Henson’s fall from grace in such style is, genuinely, very sad.

As to whether his sacking was the right thing to do, I see very little point in even debating. The comparison has been made throughout the day that Northampton’s Calum Clarke intentionally broke an opponents arm during a match and only gets a ban, while chucking ice cubes on a plane gets Gavin fired.

A fair point. But it wasn’t as though he was ever going to be staying beyond June. This decision, really, just lets the Blues take the moral high horse as a reason for chucking him out. It masks the truth that the Cardiff Blues are broke and regional rugby is broken.

Gethin Jenkins, Casey Laulala, Dan Parks, Richie Rees, Martyn Williams, John Yapp, Rhys Thomas, Maama Molitika, Deiniol Jones, Ceri Sweeney are all leaving the end of the season. Today, again, there has been more bad news that Ben Blair is in advanced talks with a French outfit while there are on-going doubts over the futures of Alex Cuthbert, Tom James, Tao Filise, Paul Tito and Ryan Tyrrel. At this rate, the Cardiff Blues will be playing an under 21’s side next season. The club is in dire financial troubles and the future of Welsh rugby has never looked so shaky. The foundations of the game are slipping from under our feet and we seem totally powerless to stop it going under.

So excuse me for not getting too concerned with the latest chapter in the Gavin Henson story, but there are far more pressing things to worry about.

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