Me & David Moffett

In a week of weird selfies I thought I would add mine.

In a strange twist of cosmic weirdness that seems to follow me around I met former WRU Chief Executive Officer David Moffett for coffee today. Yep, that's how the life of Ponty Cyclops rolls these days.

I was invited by one of the "disciples of Moffett" to basically put my mouth where my keyboard was and take him on face to face rather than via twitter. A few years ago I would have backed down and not gone, but I thought no, and in fact I would relish the opportunity to meet him.

A quick bit of background for those who are wondering who the hell Moffett is. He was in charge of the WRU and created the regions. The creation led to the birth and demise of the Celtic Warriors. That led to me losing all interesting in rugby for years. That all led to my most viewed blip since I have been on here, this one: Ponty Till I Die.

Moffett stands accused as the architect of the down fall of valleys professional rugby by the virtue of not allowing the Warriors to survive. He has been vilified in the valleys ever since. With the ongoing regional row he is back and rabble rousing and looking for support for re-election.

I am no keyboard warrior but a tweet of his last week brought it out in me, and I think my offer to him to go home may have got me the phone call to come and talk to him.

I didn't go to represent Ponty, but I went as me, representing me, and why the death of professional rugby in the areas matters so much for me. But I also went to listen to what he had to say. I challenged him on several points on what happened back ten years ago. Why he allowed the Warriors to go. He said basically the WRU was bust, they wanted Leighton Samuels to carry on, but Samuels had no desire to pump money on an endless basis. The WRU had already bailed Ponty out once and they weren't willing to do it again, and so they went.

I told him no one in Ponty would support the Blues in their current guise and i went on to ask him why in his two years still in charge of the WRU did he do nothing to reign in the superclubs and say hang on a minute guys, you are alienating all your fan base here, and he said he did have serious regrets about that. To be honest that was what I wanted to hear. No one seems to want to take any responsibility for what has happened in the last ten years, everyone is blaming everyone else ..

I came away from the meeting feeling glad I did it .. and I must admit I enjoyed the verbal joust. I have no doubts some parts of the Ponty support will not like it when the video goes up on his website, but it won't bother me. At least I had the balls to front up and meet the man. And you know what, forget the politics he is very easy to talk too ... I don't think he will be elected, I see no ground swell of support, but he might be the catalyst that leads to a change that is so badly needed.

One last point ... despite being the architect of the regions he never once referred to them as regions, and said several times that they never became the regions he wanted and were just super clubs.

He is launching his manifesto for change in the coming weeks. I will watch with interest, but it will still take a lot for him to win my over.

I would like to thank him for agreeing to meet me and have me enthuse passionately at him for two hours! It was a fun experience!