By Graham Thomas
If Warren Gatland needs any pointers on how to clear out the old and bring in the new – and maybe even win a few games – then he could do worse than have a chat with Jason Strange.
The Ebbw Vale head coach started last season with 18 new players and developed a strategy aimed at taking The Steelmen to the top of the semi-pro game.
In that campaign of 2023-24, they punched well above their weight, reaching the semi-finals of both the then Indigo Premiership and the WRU Premiership Cup.
“We needed a major restructuring job to try to take down the age profile of the squad,” says Strange, an outside-half who played for Ebbw, Newport, Bristol, Leeds and Wales A.
“We scoured the local area, and we brought in 29 new players to freshen things up.
“It was a huge turnover of players, but it needed to be done. Whenever you give youngsters an opportunity at either professional or semi-professional level, they always trust you a lot more.
“As a coach, you have to put your faith in them to get them to put their faith in you.”
This season, Ebbw Vale go into Round 12 of the new slimmed down Super Rygbi Cymru as top dogs, numero uno.
They head to RGC this weekend with a four-point lead over Cardiff and every chance of perhaps repeating their Premiership triumph of 2016.
That came the season after Strange had been poached to become head coach with Wales U20s.
Over the previous five seasons he had steered The Steelmen to four titles in Division One East and the Swalec Championship. That earned them a return to the Premiership and Strange guided them into the final.
He enjoyed immediate success in charge of Wales at Under 20 level as he guided them to their only Grand Slam at the age group in 2016.
He remained in charge until the end of the 2018 championship, when he joined a new coaching ticket under John Mulvihill at Cardiff Blues.
But the Mulvihill era was a multi-layered mess and Strange left the Arms Park after only one season before heading to rugby league as a skills and kicking coach at St Helens.
During his time at St Helens, he helped the team win the Super League Grand Final three times and the Challenge Cup once.
These days, he combines his role at Ebbw Vale with the kicking duties at Warrington, a club who reached the semi-finals of both the Super League and Challenge Cup this summer.
Last weekend, Ebbw Vale turned a 23-16 defeat at Pontypool Park a week earlier into a comprehensive 34-3 triumph over the same Pontypool team at home – and in front of a big crowd of around 4,000.
If anyone knows how to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear – and let’s face it, we’re drowning in sows’ ears at present – then it is surely, Jason Strange.
Perhaps Gatland should have a sit down with him, or even better, bring him into his coaching team.
The focus on Welsh rugby this weekend will be on the domestic scene – Super Rygbi Cymru – and what is happening over the border in the Gallagher English Premiership.
That’s because the United Rugby Championship is run by ever-so-clever marketing people, folk so clever they know the best thing you can do after building up public appetite with festive derbies is to have no games at all for 23 days.
Some foolish old-timers might imagine the right course of action is to build immediately on that generated excitement.
Luckily, the URC social media savvies know that’s outdated thinking and the really wise thing to do is bottle that appetite and store it away for three weeks.
So, this weekend the major clash is at Church Bank between Llandovery (third in SRC) and Newport (fourth), while second place Cardiff welcome bottom of the table Swansea.
Pontypool host Carmarthen Quins and Bridgend entertain Aberavon.
If Gatland was in the UK – rather than back home, painting his shed in New Zealand – then he might be tempted to visit Newcastle on Friday night, where he could run the rule over Harlequins’ Jarrod Evans and Dillon Lewis.
Other contenders for his Six Nations squad are in action on Saturday.
Gloucester – with Tomos Williams, Gareth Anscombe, Max Llewellyn and Freddie Thomas in their ranks – are at home to Sale.
Tommy Reffell and Nicky Smith will be in the Leicester squad as they host Exeter, where Dafydd Jenkins, Christ Tshiunza and Joe Hawkins will hope to catch the eye, even if Hawkins remains unselectable until someone in the WRU declares he isn’t.
Saracens’ Rhys Carre is in the same boat marked ineligible, but Liam Williams will hope to press his claims for a recall when Sarries face Bristol.
