'Slam or slammed. With the Welsh, there tends to be no in-between, no happy medium’

Wales have always had an uncanny ability to mix the mundane with the magical.

Maybe the explanation is to be found buried somewhere deep in the Welsh psyche. Whatever the reason, nothing in Welsh society provokes mood wings as extreme as those caused by the state of their national rugby team.

They are either going to beat the world, as they very nearly did in New Zealand fewer than 18 months ago or they are too bad to be worth watching as was the case after the New Zealand match before Christmas when 15,000 dropped them like a hot brick rather than turn up the following week.

Slam or slammed. With the Welsh, there tends to be no in-between, no middle-of-the-road, no happy medium.

The advent of another Six Nations finds the team and the more volatile elements within the massed battalions of the Red Dragon Army fretting over their slide from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Seven straight defeats has induced a sense of foreboding among the doom-mongers, an anxiety heightened by an unusually long casualty list.

When they take a right hand turn out of their dressing room into the tunnel at the Millennium Stadium, Ireland will be wary lest they find themselves walking into a Welsh trap. Nobody, of course, will risk giving fate a shove between the shoulder blades by saying so but they will fancy their chances of prolonging the Welsh misery.

Where else would Ireland want to start than at their home-from-home by the banks of the Taff where they won their Grand Slam in 2009 and where their provinces have won three European Cups in five years? Jamie Heaslip may not be the least bit bothered about the politics of the issue but the Irish captain’s antennae will be sharp enough to sense that Welsh rugby is in a bit of a mess.

The national team is in the throes of its longest losing sequence for 10 years, since Steve Hansen was calling the shots, and look where he is now. Another defeat with a trio of away matches to follow starting with France in Paris would be viewed as nothing short of catastrophic for a country which went to within an inch or two of reaching the World Cup final on the strength of Leigh Halfpenny’s late, long-distance penalty.

Since that night at Eden Park where they were good enough to have seen France off despite the red card which did for Sam Warburton, Wales have simply forgotten how to win. Losing one Test to Australia in the last-minute is unfortunate. Two is beyond a joke, three more than coincidence but four? Throw in a dire start to the autumn series against Argentina and an even more dire failure against Samoa seven days later and the picture of public discontent is not difficult to see. The consequent tumble down the IRB rankings downgraded Wales to third tier status at the World Cup draw before Christmas.

Worse still, the decline has been accompanied by the demoralising sound of bickering between the Welsh Rugby Union and their four regional teams. It has gone on for so long that the predicament of the Pro 12 teams based in Cardiff, Llanelli, Newport and Swansea has united a quartet who could too often been found squabbling among themselves.

The Ospreys, Scarlets, Blues and Dragons produced the players which Wales almost turned into world-beaters at the last World Cup. Their ruthless quarter-final domination of Ireland in Wellington was as good, probably better, than anything reached by Gareth, Benny, JPR, JJ, Merve and the gang during the ’70s.

Yet of all the constants in the Welsh game none has been more so than the perennial failure of their teams to win the European Cup. Ireland, of course, have done so ad infinitum by comparison, prompting recurring calls on this side of the Irish Sea for central contracts.

Between them, the regions lost north of £10m last year. When the benefactors decided they were no longer willing to throw good money after bad, the four teams didn’t so much tighten their belts as throw them away with their trousers. A drastically reduced salary cap hastened the departure of many high earners, mainly to France, a few across the border to England and one across the Irish Sea to Belfast — Tommy Bowe back from the Ospreys whence he came.

A heavy diet of televised matches and with Saturday afternoon kick-offs almost as rare as an Italian Grand Slam was bad enough, the almost annual hike in ticket prices to a high of £80 infinitely worse. The fans resorted to their most effective protest and voted with their feet. The Ospreys and Scarlets may have stopped the rot in terms of dwindling attendances but even they are some way short of averaging five-figures.

And that at a time when the country’s two football clubs are booming. Swansea City, the talk of the Premier League for the second season running, fill the Liberty Stadium to its modest 20,500 capacity every time they play.

Cardiff City top that and then some, crowds of 25,000 and upwards reflecting their position seven points clear at the top of the Championship. For once Welsh rugby has some serious competition and it will be even more serious should the soccer clubs enforce plans to extend their stadia.

The converts to the round-ball cause include ex-Wales rugby captain, Mike Hall although admittedly he does have a vested interest as a director of Cardiff City FC. He talks of ‘fundamental’ issues in Welsh rugby and says: “I think they are walking blindfolded into the abyss. I really do.”

The WRU can no longer afford to shrug that off as another voice of doom. Nor, one suspects, can they afford to put 50 or 60 players under central contract and copy the Irish model. Those who advocate such a step justify it on one sentence: ‘Look what it’s done for Ireland.’

And what, in reality, has it done for Ireland. Five of the last seven European Cups is mightily impressive but at Test level? One Six Nations title, with a Grand Slam to boot, amounts to precious little and central contracts have not cured the quadrennial Irish problem of failing to make it beyond the quarter-finals of the World Cup.

Welsh rugby has always had an uncanny ability to mix the mundane with the magical which is what they did when I saw my first Wales-Ireland match at the Arms Park in 1965. The late Terry Price dropped a goal of such monstrous dimension that I swear it almost landed in the middle of Westgate Street.

The magic has been in short supply lately, largely because of Shane Williams’ absence, and Ireland will be hoping they don’t conjure up anything of the sort today.

Picture: Mike Phillips: One of many Welsh stars who left for better money in France. Picture: SPORTSFILE