Williams says the uncertainty was unsettling with current Ospreys head coach Mark Jones saying the squad had heard nothing from Y11.

“Is there a conclusion, do we know what is happening?” said Williams, who is head of rugby at a west Wales school that plays in Welsh rugby’s schools and colleges premier league.

“The last few weeks have been quite upsetting for someone who has been affiliated with the Ospreys from the start, so I can’t imagine what the current guys are going through.

“It’s difficult and feels very personal for me. I have the boys who I teach coming up to me asking is there a chance the Ospreys will be gone because they can’t believe it.

“I am trying to explain and give the positives of it, but there aren’t any positives.”

Williams described how the past-player movement came about.

“We got together on a Whatsapp group and started speaking about what we can do as coaches and ex-players,” said Williams.

“For me and a lot of the other boys, we started the Ospreys, we were part of that identity.

“When you play rugby with players, even though when you finish and you go on different paths in life, you still stay close… you are always going to have that special bond.”

Williams hopes the players’ intervention has not come too late.

“We felt a bit obsolete, redundant in the fact we have not done much for the Ospreys of late,” said Williams.

“We needed to get our act together and prove how much the Ospreys means to us, the community and the current players and coaches.

“Mark Jones [Ospreys head coach] sent me a voice message in the week.

“You could tell how much it meant to him that the old boys were backing him and the players.”