said Max Boyce. Well, we can't all be there, can we? And so it's important that we all have an opportunity, through television, to share in that experience. I remember where I was when Ieuan Evans scored that excellent try in 1988 against Scotland. I'm sure we all remember where we were when Scott Gibbs scored in Wembley in 1999, or when Gavin Henson kicked that wonderful kick to beat England in 2005. It's part of our national memory, isn't it, it's part of our heritage, and it's part of our culture.

People say, 'Well, go to the pub to watch the game. If we have to pay, you can watch it in the pub.' But that doesn’t work for everyone, as we've already heard. My children couldn’t have watched Wales play England on Saturday if we'd had to go to the pub to watch the game. And neither would they have spent hours in the garden playing rugby, emulating Dan Biggar and Hadleigh Parkes, with me with a little white tape on my ears trying to look like Alun Wyn Jones. And I'm surprisingly similar, if truth be told. [Laughter.]

But six nations matches are national treasures, and they should be safeguarded. If it's good enough for the Grand National, then surely it's good enough for Wales rugby matches in the six nations. We've heard reference to cricket, and the experience that cricket has been through over the past few years. Well, 9 million watched Freddie Flintoff and the team in the Ashes matches back in 2005—9 million people. But soon after that, cricket went behind a paywall, and people had to pay to watch those games. By the world cup, there was barely a million. Indeed, it was 0.5 million people watching some of the England games in the world cup. And when it came to the finals, Sky decided that they had to show it free of charge on Channel 4, and even then, only 4.5 million people watched. So, that was a decline of half the audience in 15 years watching the England cricket team. Now, that's an admission of failure that they had to broadcast on Channel 4. And in the same summer, of course, there were still almost 10 million people watching Wimbledon, free to air. Over 8 million people watched the England women's football team in the world cup at the same time.

We've heard already that the income of selling broadcasting rights to invest in the game at the grass-roots level would make up, perhaps, for the audience loss. Well, participation figures in cricket show now that those playing cricket regularly has almost halved in the last two decades, which corresponds to that period that I mentioned earlier, of course, when it hasn't been available free to air. Now, that isn't the future we want for rugby in Wales, and that isn't the future that Plaid Cymru wants for rugby in Wales. And that is why we are eager to see everyone supporting our motion today, to ensure that everyone, whoever they are, in Wales can access and share in the celebrations, hopefully, every time that Wales plays a game in the six nations championship.