Off the field, Welsh rugby is in turmoil. Battle lines have been drawn between the Welsh Rugby Union and the regions over funding, a proposed Anglo-Welsh league and the exodus of key players.
George North is all too aware of the dispute, among those to have taken his rugby-playing capabilities across the border with a move to English Premiership side Northampton before the start of the season.
The 21-year-old shakes his head when the subject of the rugby in-fighting within the country comes to the fore and is at a loss to come up with a solution.
“How long have you got?” he asks with a forlorn expression. “I got out luckily and I think for me it was the best decision and I’m happy with what I’ve done.
“But it’s difficult now for me seeing my mates going through the same thing I went through. It’s hard as there’s not so much security in Wales, and there’s no right answer in all this. I don’t think anyone has the answer right now.
“And it’s a shame it is how it is as, at the end of the day, it’s the players and the playing quality in Wales it will have a massive effect on. Inevitably the quality of the regions’ and the national squad will go down.”
Is there a chance that North might go back to play his domestic rugby in Wales? “Saints have made me feel content here, they’ve gone the extra mile and for the foreseeable future I can’t see myself going back. I’ve got a good bunch of mates, I’m enjoying my rugby and I’m allowed to play in Wales fixtures.”
While there may be trouble off the field in Wales in the build-up to this weekend’s Six Nations, that is by no means the case on it. Wales kick off against Italy later today bidding to become the first side to win a hat-trick of titles in the history of the Six Nations.
North’s countrymen last achieved the feat when just five nations scrapped it out for northern hemisphere supremacy in 1971, a side awash with some of the greats of Welsh rugby such as Barry John, JPR Williams and Gerald Davies.
For his part, North baulks at any comparison between the two sets of playing squads. “Those guys were awesome, they were legends,” he says.
In the past, the likes of North, the players and coach Warren Gatland have preferred not to dwell on history but, as they came together as a group for their first pre-tournament training session, Gatland was quick to point out they had the potential to be history makers.
For North, though, that does not necessarily come as easily. “I prefer to just focus on what we’re doing and what we achieved as a result merely helps us going forward,” he says.
But there has been a certain modest swagger in the Wales camp just outside Cardiff this week and might there well be following two Six Nations successes and providing the core of the British and Irish Lions side that beat Australia last summer.
North admits there is a different feeling in the Wales camp. “I’d say it feels like I’m walking with my chest puffed out, well, that is if I had a chest!” he says.
“It’s always great to come back into the Wales camp. I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved. But we always want to get better and achieve more, to push ourselves forward. That will never change.”
North is a key ingredient in this new era of Welsh rugby. In the past, the great Wales sides have shone with their attacking flair. The Wales of today have that but also a marauding backline of giants. North is 6ft 4in and 17 stone, his fellow wing Alex Cuthbert measures at 6ft 6in – not to mention the 6ft 4in, 17-stone frame of defensive captain Jamie Roberts at centre.
As a player, North’s key asset is his try-scoring ability, whether that be running the length of the field as he did with the Lions or scoring from a pop-up kick from Dan Biggar for a famous win against France in Paris last year.
It brought the comedic moment of North’s father David invading the pitch at the Stade de France to celebrate. There is an element of amusement as North recalls the moment as “pretty special”. But with 15 tries already at the tender age of 21, there is a sense that North, if he stays fit, has every chance of one day overhauling Shane Williams’ national record of 58 tries.
With two Six Nations titles, a World Cup semi-final and Lions tour victory to his name, it is sometimes easy to forget how young North still is, a fact he agrees with.
“I feel like I’m 10 years older than I am when I’m doing my job, training or playing – if that makes sense – but when I’m away I still feel like a chilled out 21-year-old.”
Gatland will be all too aware that North is still some way off his peak, that he is still a work in progress, as is this Welsh side as it builds towards next year’s World Cup. Between now and then there is plenty of rugby to be played but North admits “the World Cup is the big goal”.
He sums up Wales’ pool, which includes Australia and England nicely with the words “it’s a tough old group” but also with the confidence that they will come out of it and into the knock-out stages.
Gatland will still be at the helm then and potentially for the World Cup after that having signed a new long-term deal with the WRU. North shows a near reverence to his international coach.
“There’s a lot of respect for what he’s brought to the game here and the rapport he has with the players,” he adds. “His brand of rugby is hard and fast and physical. I love that. When the gaffer says ‘jump’ you say ‘how high?’. It was the case on the Lions tour and it’s the case with Wales.”
How high seems the pertinent question. What heights can this gargantuan Wales side achieve under Gatland and North himself? The next few weeks will help answer that.
