Richard Mullock - The Creation of A Welsh National Team

The Creation of A Welsh National Team

These events led to a meeting in the Tenby Hotel in Swansea in 1880, organised between rugby union clubs in an attempt to produce a representative team to face the English national team. Little was gained from the meeting, but it did produce an agreed desire form the parties present to meet with the English Rugby Football Union to arrange a match between Wales and England. Mullock became the architect of this movement and it was through him that the RFU arranged a fixture with a Welsh team on 8 January 1881. Mullock arranged a set of trials in December 1880 to choose the team that would face England, to be captained by Cambridge University player James Bevan.

The selection performance of the first Welsh team was contentious, with Mullock choosing a geographically varied team of educated men, most of whom most were linked to the older colleges. The original date of 8 January was postponed to 22 January, which in turn was cancelled due to frost. Mullock was concerned that the lack of a fixture date would lead towards the same accusations of incompetence levelled at the S.W.F.U., and accepted a date of 19 February even though it fell a day before a cup semi-final between Swansea and Llanelli. On the day of the match two of the players chosen to represent Wales failed to show for the game. The missing players later complained that there was little definite communication between Mullock and themselves.

The match itself was a one sided affair, with the English winning by seven goals, a dropped goal and six tries to nil, 82-0 by modern scoring standards. This was a terrible defeat for the Welsh and when the backlash came from the press, Mullock discovered that he was the only Welsh executive and was carrying the responsibility for the defeat. The Western Mail ran several editorials asking whether the match was an affiliated team endorsed by the S.W.F.U. or a private team organised by Mullock. The S.W.F.U. distanced themselves from the match, allowing the responsibility to fall on Mullock; though this tactic was ill conceived, as the rugby clubs appeared to prefer Mullock's positive approach rather than the S.W.F.U.'s inactivity. These events led to the formation of the Welsh Football Union, later to be named the Welsh Rugby Union, at the Castle Hotel in Neath on 12 March 1881. The S.W.F.U. failed to attend the meeting, which led to their dissolution as the WFU was accepted as the official representative union of the Welsh clubs.