One might well ask what the Welsh have to feel proud about. A Wleshman could point out, in response, that the Welsh enjoyed one of the oldest and richest cultures in the world when the English were still illitearate barbarians (which was, according to most Welsh historians, not that long ago); that Wales was the cradle of British Christianity when England was still a pagan wildernesss (also not very long ago) and that the Welsh enjoyed the reputation of being among the fiercest fighters in Europe when the English were already weakend by soft living (about this morning).
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Some people say that the Welsh have a love/hate relationship with the English but they are, in fact, 100% wrong. For a start there is precious little love involved. Yet hate is also conspicuous by its absence which is surprising, given that the English conquered the country through treachery, killed its last native ruller in a particularly nasty manner and, over a period of several hundred years, comprehensivley looted its natural resources.
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Rugby gives a tiny impovrished nation the opportunity to beat another with more than ten times the population and to beat it decisivley and regularly. Rugby is the chance the Welsh have to humiliate the English at the game they invented. Rugby gives the Welsh their pride back. Rugby gives them revenge.
The Welsh are (normally) extremely proficient at rugby. They enjoy it and take it seriously. This is because rugby - with its physical agression, tactics, disciplined use of force and organized violence - is the closest thing modern day life can offer by way of Wales' traditional national sport: War.
The Welsh military scorecard is impressive: convincing away wins for the Welsh longbowmen in Ireland and France and some honour as part of a mixed team in Scotland (Welsh archers being the only part of the English army at Bannocburn which did not break). True they lost the series to England after a dispicable foul on the Welsh captain (involving the removal of his head) put him out of the game but only after some solid wins at home and away. (It is however curious that Welsh victories like Leominster, Cardigan and Coleshill are rarely mentioned in English history books.) South Africa, then as now, was something of a bogey, but the points deficit at Isandhwana was decisivley made up at Rorke's Drift.
Alas, Rugby, like warfare itself once open to all, is being ruined by professionalism. Wales is a small nation (both in population and average height) whose only advantage was enthusiastic amateurism. It is difficult to see how, in the long term, such a few poor, short people can produce teams to oppose larger numbers of taller people with the money to spend on selective breeding programs.
Yet misfortune leaves Welsh rugby open to a Welsh speciality - the unlikely win against the odds. This is pulled off with surprising frequency, the Welsh being at their best when they have their backs against the wall. They are at their worst when it is an odds on certainty that they will beat a joke of a team from somewhere that most people could not place on a map - in that case it is guaranteed Wales will loose.
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Some feuds are provisionaly scheduled to last until the day of judgment, but others can be temporarily put aside in the interests of persuing a common feud of greater importance. You can get away with being English when the British Lions are playing, or when the Welsh have just beaten the English at Cardiff, at which point your Welshman will, in fact, become revoltingly affable. 😀