Welsh rugby is burning as players are failed by those in charge
Should any of the Welsh rugby hierarchy make the trip to Rome next weekend, they probably won't be tempted to give the Gardens of Maecenas a visit.
It is there where Emperor Nero supposedly watched the Great Fire of Rome, strumming a lute as he dreamed of the new city he hoped would arise from the ashes.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. But what of those looking on as Welsh rugby sits there, engulfed in flames? Less fiddled, more dawdled.
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Defeat next week in the Italian capital would likely mean a second successive wooden spoon for Warren Gatland's side, already winless in nearly 16 months.
For almost as long as Wales have been unable to win Test matches, there has been a promise from the top of the Welsh Rugby Union, borrowing CEO Abi Tierney's phrasing from last March, to 'search the horizon for our North star'.
For those not versed in Union speak, that means a new strategy - encouraged in the independent review undertaken back in 2023 and promised for June 2024.
Alas, summer turned into autumn, then winter. Here we are, back in the Six Nations, from where a wooden spoon last year preceded the promise of a North star.
And yet, still no real sign of a strategy, beyond the announcement of an outline for the ‘One Wales… where rugby matters more’ strategy in June.
Since then, the full-fat strategy - and with it, more crucially, an agreement on a new financial deal between the Union and the four professional sides - has remained on the horizon, constantly remaining out of reach.
Perhaps, where Nero looked on at the flames and sang, the Tower of Maecenas should give a good vantage point to find that North star.
The Union will point to the countless things that have been announced in the last year that fall under the 'One Wales' umbrella. A first 'Emerging Player Programme' for U16s girls has been introduced as part of it, while Belinda Moore's appointment as head of women's rugby at the WRU was hailed as the 'cornerstone' of the strategy.
Then, in the last week, a streamlined executive team structure was announced, with two roles - chief growth officer and a director of rugby - described as "keystone appointments" in implementing the 'One Wales' strategy. That's the strategy that hasn't officially been revealed yet.
There's few parts of the Welsh game that are overly healthy, but the men's national team - quite clearly - is in need of desperate revival. As Warren Gatland's side bounce around from defeat to defeat, conceding 140 points in the last three Tests alone, action is needed.
Yet, in an environment where paralysis often trumps progress, that hasn't been forthcoming. Getting anything done in Welsh rugby, with its deep-rooted mistrust, is not easy. That falls upon all around the negotiating table.
It's considerably easier to fire shots from afar - or on social media as some do - than really get stuff done.
On an almost weekly basis for some time now, the signing off of the new Professional Rugby Agreement between the WRU and the regions has been 'close'. And yet, not close enough it seems.
The last talk of the five-year deal was described as better than the current one, but that was rarely described as anything other than a sticking plaster.
WRU chair Richard Collier-Keywood admitted in November that it couldn't be another "sticking plaster". Then, the hope was something would be announced before Christmas. Now, who knows when it'll come.
Looking around the gutted players at the Stade de France on Friday night, all you could feel was the sense that a group of hard-working, honest lads have been let down by those in charge of the game in this country.
But that sense of sympathy for those in a red jersey has been a sickening and recurring one after every Test for the last year.
Christians bearing the brunt of the blame as Nero watches on from above. However Welsh rugby is to pull itself out of this miserable existence right now, there's no meat on the bones as yet.
Just an outline.
Just as there have been defeats and outlines, there have been reviews. My god, there have been reviews. All Welsh rugby seems to be is a never-ending review with the odd 80 minutes of physical activity now and then.
Some of this precedes Tierney and Collier-Keywood of course. Were it not the series of events that brought about the independent review in November 2023 - with the Union accused of a 'toxic culture' following a BBC documentary - former CEO Steve Phillips, the man who brought Gatland back for his second spell, might well still be in post.
Instead, he is gone, albeit with a pay-off of £480,000. Others have left the Union since. Executive director of rugby Nigel Walker wasn't a scapegoat for the handling of the women's contracts last November, until he was the man cut adrift for the whole of Welsh rugby's ills in 2024 a month later.
In fairness, at least Walker's departure was a recommendation heeded from a review. That's not always the case. Countless reviews have come and gone with little or no action.
Hark back to the 1990s and you'll find cuttings about reviews in Welsh rugby merely being "allowed to gather dust before being finally shredded as space was made for a new document". If nothing else, that's reassuringly familiar.
No one is suggesting putting a strategy in place is simple - "If this was easy, we would have done it by now," said Collier-Keywood in November.
As intent as Tierney and Collier-Keywood are to unite Welsh rugby with this strategy, the uncomfortable truth is that their fate is perhaps intertwined with Gatland's.
There have been moments where Gatland's job has been on the line. Times when one of those countless reviews might have called for change. Those moments, so far, have passed. That review, in the end, did little.
But, undoubtedly, they've put all their chips on Gatland. Their position is weakened if the roulette wheel lands on black rather than red in the coming weeks, starting in the Italian capital next Saturday.
Welsh rugby, just as Rome once did, is burning. Change, it seems, is glacial at best. Right now, you'd be hard-pressed to know what comes next - a victory, a review or a full strategy?
Someone grab the fiddle.
