RUGBY legend Graham Price is urging the game’s powerbrokers to rethink the way the sport is being run in Wales to prevent the national team plunging into the international wilderness.

His stark warning comes in the wake of the Wales Under-20s side’s humiliating 92-0 annihilation at the hands of New Zealand’s Baby Blacks at the Junior World Cup this week.

The appalling defeat, the worst at any level by a Wales side, trumps the shameful 96-13 surrender to South Africa in 1998 by the seniors.

It has left many asking: Where now for Welsh rugby after this latest debacle?

And Price says that unless Wales sorts itself out, the national side could join the national football team in the international abyss.

“We need a rethink – we can’t carry on the way we have been going,” said the member of the famous ‘Pontypool Front Row’ of the 1970s.

“We don’t want to end up the way Welsh football has gone,” he added.

Price, who played 41 times for Wales and is the Lions’ most capped front row forward after 12 successive Test matches between 1977 and 1983, said Wales has fallen a long way from grace since it started rugby’s coaching revolution in the late 1960s, paving the way for the halcyon days of the second Golden Era.

“Before my time, the Welsh rugby team’s development, with Ray Williams as coaching organiser, was the envy of the world,” he said. “Welsh coaches were being invited to go to New Zealand for advice.”

As well as losing our coaching focus, Price thinks Wales’ young players spend too much time in the gym and not enough developing skills, churning out what some refer to as ‘gym monkeys’.

He said: “I think in Wales we pay too much attention at what goes on in the gym.

“It all seems to be about sprinting and bench pressing. I think it gives the young players a false sense of hope.”

And Price believes Wales has lost its way since the Under-21s set-up – which produced players of the calibre of Gavin Henson, Nicky Robinson, Mike Phillips and Alun Wyn Jones – was revamped to make way for the current Under-20s system.

“Normally we have been quite successful at this sort of age-group,” he said.

“Wales Under-21s won a number of Grand Slam titles a few years ago when Chris Davey was their coach.

“But they dispensed with him – I can’t understand the reason for that break.”

And, in Price’s opinion, too many young players with regional contracts aren’t playing enough rugby either at the top level or in the Premiership. “A lot of young boys are getting the playing experience. They seem to either be on the bench or sitting in the stands,” he said.

“The Premiership would be a lot stronger if they played more often.”

And lack of quality players in key positions is another problem for him.

Price said: “I keep my eye on the front row and what is disappointing is that we don’t seem to have the strength in depth not only to replace Adam Jones when he’s injured, but someone who can actually push him for his position.”