KEVIN WEAVER has ended a three-year association with top-flight rugby league in Wales by quitting as national coach and coach of Torfaen Tigers.
But Weaver has thanked the Argus for helping to establish the 13-a-side code in Gwent, which now boasts both the Tigers and Newport Titans among the seven teams in the Welsh Conference.
The 43-year-old has chosen to concentrate his efforts on his role as assistant coach to Pontypool RFC in the Principality Welsh Premier League but says he is leaving league after three years of non-stop, 12- months-a-year rugby with a heavy heart.
He said: "I will stand down but I will always be associated with the Tigers. It will be hard just to say 'no more'. I will always be involved with the kids' side of it but, with working at Pontypool, it has been very difficult.
"I haven't had any time off from rugby for three years so one of these had to go and, reluctantly, it was the rugby league.
"It was only through the support of people like the Argus that we got it off the ground."
Weaver, though, has left a significant legacy behind him both with the club side he raised from nothing to national competition runners-up in 2003 and with the senior and teenager Wales set-ups.
The former Newbridge and Pontypool rugby union hooker admitted he knew nothing about rugby league when he was initially approached on a cold and wet evening at Panteg RFC.
From there, he has successfully taken Wales' senior team to the Four Nations Championship twice and the Tigers to two cup finals - the National Shield at Warrington's Wilderspool ground and this year's Welsh Conference showdown at Bridgend's Brewery Field.
Weaver said of his association with the Tigers: "It's been a hell of a journey. To start off in Panteg with eight players and four Warrington Acadamy players to do what we did that year is fairytale stuff.
"Getting to that final in Warrington upped the profile of the game in East Wales. It showed Newport that there was a chance for rugby league in the area.
"Everyone wanted a piece of the action at that time and we consolidated at Torfaen. I was doing the coaching, washing the kit and everything else. Now they have an excellent committee who run the club well.
"But I don't think I'll ever forget the challenge that was thrown at me at the start."
And he reckons rugby league, with the Conference now well established and the new Celtic Crusaders beginning their debut campaign in the semi-pro National League Two next April, has the chance to fix its roots in the Welsh sporting culture.
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