knowing that today his stadium and his team are at the centre of the centre.
Roger is fifty-eight years old, but with his neatly parted brown hair, trim figure and senator’s smile he looks fifteen years younger. Having studied music composition and worked as a composer and musician, Roger came to the WRU in 2006 via executive positions at Radio 1, Classic FM, EMI and Decca. Although now firmly ensconced in rugby, he sometimes feels as if on a match day his two worlds still meet in this stadium, the teams like orchestras , the game a concert and the referee the conductor. Music and rugby come together at Roger’s home in St Hilary too, where he’ll often work into the night on his laptop beside the fire, deep in WRU business but always accompanied by one of the thousands of CDs from his room-sized library next door.
This morning marks the apex of Roger’s time with the WRU. When he first joined the organisation, it was struggling, on and off the pitch. In 2010, after a difficult season, he was questioned both privately and publicly about the wisdom of extending Warren Gatland’s contract as Wales head coach. Today, though, having reduced the organisation’s debt, opened up new revenue streams, secured Warren until after the 2015 World Cup and signed new sponsorship and broadcast deals, he will watch as Wales make a bid for their third Grand Slam in eightyears. There are still issues. Regional rugby is fighting to keep its head above water, and many in the game are looking to Roger and the WRU to throw it a lifeline. There have been accusations that the national game is thriving at the expense of local rugby. There are always others who would do things differently. But today, just a year after those doubts about his decision-making were expressed, Roger is enjoying, for a few hours at least, being at the helm of the WRU when the country is febrile with talk of a third golden generation of Welsh rugby.
In his own way, like the players and the coaches he employs Roger is a winner who thrives on the hit of success . Ruthless in pursuit of his ideas and a shrewd judge of character, he’s a man unafraid to explore the visionary and the experimental. Driven by a desire to fly ‘at great heights’, he’s moved swiftly through the higher echelons of the music and broadcasting industries. And yet, despite his current position and the depth of his past experience, there is still something permanently boyish about Roger, as if Just William had suddenly woken to find himself a successful executive, still effervescent with the surprise of his new-found powers in the grown-up world.
Behind Roger the stadium’s roof is still only open by a metre. All around him the building is being prepared. PR women high-heel down the players’ tunnel, phones to their ears, clipboards balanced like babies at their hips. The suited event managers speak to each other through headsets, while cameramen lay looping armfuls of cablesand the sponsor’s logos are painted onto the pitch. Thousands of folding seats click and tut from high in the stands as teams of cleaners move through the aisles and rows. Deeper within the building the staff of the Barry John and Gareth Edwards bars on level three are connecting their beer barrels and checking their pumps.
Back home in Barry, meanwhile, Michael, having finished his breakfast, sits in his favourite armchair and turns on the TV. The Blims appear on the screen, playing and singing their song.
And we’ll all hold hands and drink to each other’s good health,
And we’ll all hold hands and thank the Lord we’re born Welsh,
And the more we drink the more we’ll sing
Calon Lan,
And we all hope Wales win the Grand Slam.
Michael watches, another cup of tea in his hand, admiring the colour and pattern of the pitch on which the band are playing, the neatness of the grass around the posts.
10 a.m.
If Jonathan Davies laid the foundation for Wales’s victory against Ireland, it was Leigh Halfpenny
Roger is fifty-eight years old, but with his neatly parted brown hair, trim figure and senator’s smile he looks fifteen years younger. Having studied music composition and worked as a composer and musician, Roger came to the WRU in 2006 via executive positions at Radio 1, Classic FM, EMI and Decca. Although now firmly ensconced in rugby, he sometimes feels as if on a match day his two worlds still meet in this stadium, the teams like orchestras , the game a concert and the referee the conductor. Music and rugby come together at Roger’s home in St Hilary too, where he’ll often work into the night on his laptop beside the fire, deep in WRU business but always accompanied by one of the thousands of CDs from his room-sized library next door.
This morning marks the apex of Roger’s time with the WRU. When he first joined the organisation, it was struggling, on and off the pitch. In 2010, after a difficult season, he was questioned both privately and publicly about the wisdom of extending Warren Gatland’s contract as Wales head coach. Today, though, having reduced the organisation’s debt, opened up new revenue streams, secured Warren until after the 2015 World Cup and signed new sponsorship and broadcast deals, he will watch as Wales make a bid for their third Grand Slam in eightyears. There are still issues. Regional rugby is fighting to keep its head above water, and many in the game are looking to Roger and the WRU to throw it a lifeline. There have been accusations that the national game is thriving at the expense of local rugby. There are always others who would do things differently. But today, just a year after those doubts about his decision-making were expressed, Roger is enjoying, for a few hours at least, being at the helm of the WRU when the country is febrile with talk of a third golden generation of Welsh rugby.
In his own way, like the players and the coaches he employs Roger is a winner who thrives on the hit of success . Ruthless in pursuit of his ideas and a shrewd judge of character, he’s a man unafraid to explore the visionary and the experimental. Driven by a desire to fly ‘at great heights’, he’s moved swiftly through the higher echelons of the music and broadcasting industries. And yet, despite his current position and the depth of his past experience, there is still something permanently boyish about Roger, as if Just William had suddenly woken to find himself a successful executive, still effervescent with the surprise of his new-found powers in the grown-up world.
Behind Roger the stadium’s roof is still only open by a metre. All around him the building is being prepared. PR women high-heel down the players’ tunnel, phones to their ears, clipboards balanced like babies at their hips. The suited event managers speak to each other through headsets, while cameramen lay looping armfuls of cablesand the sponsor’s logos are painted onto the pitch. Thousands of folding seats click and tut from high in the stands as teams of cleaners move through the aisles and rows. Deeper within the building the staff of the Barry John and Gareth Edwards bars on level three are connecting their beer barrels and checking their pumps.
Back home in Barry, meanwhile, Michael, having finished his breakfast, sits in his favourite armchair and turns on the TV. The Blims appear on the screen, playing and singing their song.
And we’ll all hold hands and drink to each other’s good health,
And we’ll all hold hands and thank the Lord we’re born Welsh,
And the more we drink the more we’ll sing
Calon Lan,
And we all hope Wales win the Grand Slam.
Michael watches, another cup of tea in his hand, admiring the colour and pattern of the pitch on which the band are playing, the neatness of the grass around the posts.
10 a.m.
If Jonathan Davies laid the foundation for Wales’s victory against Ireland, it was Leigh Halfpenny
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