{"id":16982,"date":"2026-01-29T19:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=16982"},"modified":"2026-01-29T19:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:40:15","slug":"wales-rugby-crisis-shane-williams-hopes-player-power-can-help-save-ospreys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=16982","title":{"rendered":"Wales rugby crisis: Shane Williams hopes player power can help save Ospreys"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams says the uncertainty was unsettling with current Ospreys head coach Mark Jones saying the squad had heard nothing from Y11.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Is there a conclusion, do we know what is happening?&#8221; said Williams, who is head of rugby at a west Wales school that plays in Welsh rugby&#8217;s schools and colleges premier league.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The last few weeks have been quite upsetting for someone who has been affiliated with the Ospreys from the start, so I can&#8217;t imagine what the current guys are going through.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s difficult and feels very personal for me. I have the boys who I teach coming up to me asking is there a chance the Ospreys will be gone because they can&#8217;t believe it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I am trying to explain and give the positives of it, but there aren&#8217;t any positives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams described how the past-player movement came about.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We got together on a WhatsApp group and started speaking about what we can do as coaches and ex-players,&#8221; said Williams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;For me and a lot of the other boys, we started the Ospreys, we were part of that identity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When you play rugby with players, even though when you finish and you go on different paths in life, you still stay close&#8230; you are always going to have that special bond.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams hopes the players&#8217; intervention has not come too late.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We felt a bit obsolete, redundant in the fact we have not done much for the Ospreys of late,&#8221; said Williams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We needed to get our act together and prove how much the Ospreys means to us, the community and the current players and coaches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Mark Jones [Ospreys head coach] sent me a voice message in the week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You could tell how much it meant to him that the old boys were backing him and the players.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c0eryd1gqnxo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Williams says the uncertainty &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[251],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}