Will they blame Thatcher?

I don’t really like, understand or follow rugby but even I know that England scored a famous victory over Wales last night in the opening game of the Six Nations. Wales once dominated British rugby because all the Welsh pit villages and collieries had very strong teams. Young players would come through those ranks and go on to become international stars. When the pits began to close in the 1980s, Welsh rugby went into a steep decline from which they took twenty years to recover. On last night’s evidence, that recovery isn’t quite complete so let’s blame the Tories. And let’s remind ourselves of the last time Wales were truly dominant both in the charts and on the rugby pitch.