Welsh plan to cut professional teams from four to three

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

archive.ph

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Be interesting to see who's for the chop - you'd have thought Dragons, usually, but they're like the WRUs plaything atm with the WRU making a bunch of Welsh qualified players go there from the Prem

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

wouldn't they be taking a huge cut in TV money? plus it's not like cutting one franchise is going to help the attendance of another franchise. Will also lead to less opportunities for Welsh players. I guess all the dragons will have to stay in the Championship now.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Until there's a spurious WOL article I won't believe it.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

Until there's a spurious WOL article I won't believe it.

yeah I feel this gets reported once every other year

 

[Bluemoon]

 

[Welsh Exile]

******* horrible idea, though. An Ospreys Scarlets merger will be touted no doubt. Urgh. Would rather go back to seeing Neath V Swansea and bring back Ponty and all the old clubs.

 

[Welsh Exile]

yeah I feel this gets reported once every other year

True, though generous. They usually run one once a month or so.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

As I've said before, I think 4 Welsh sides is only sustainable if they are genuinely intended to be challengers. Not a junior partner like the Dragons were until recently. The only way to achieve this is to buy cheap players of decent pedigree from countries with weaker currencies like PIs, Georgia and Argentina and resign yourself to a significant proportion of players not being Welsh qualified. This would be my preferred option but is unlikely to create a Welsh ***le contender any time soon.

If that is not desirable financially or ideologically then someone needs to go because there arent enough WelshQ players of sufficient standard to go around and if anything that may get worse when the English league gets more stringent in terms of the benefits of EnglishQ players in club sides.

I'd also say you surely can't mourn the demise of 1 URC franchise AND say you'd like to go back to the old clubs. "The demise of 1 club is so horrible, let's nuke all 4!"

In terms of an Ospreys / Scarlets merger (the main rumour last time when the union was in a far healthier state) would it be remotely fair to compare the potential of such a side to Munster, splitting games between two stadia?

I always find it bizarre sides that do that though. It must be so financially inefficient.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

I'd also say you surely can't mourn the demise of 1 URC franchise AND say you'd like to go back to the old clubs. "The demise of 1 club is so horrible, let's nuke all 4!"

1. try me*

2. I think that sports have a utility other than winning or producing players for a national team. Putting out a good entertainment product that has a strong connection to the community (not saying that the players have to be welsh but that the club is cared about in the community) can be a good business. As you said, they would rather have substandard welsh players than bring in international players who could play a role. Like do these teams even have general managers.

*I was an eight year old American who didn't know what rugby was when this happened but I know for a fact that the club system was better

 

[McTallshort]

Remember a few years ago when the French and English clubs were pushing for less automatic qualification into the Heineken cup everyone was worried about the Scottish sides. The fact that now not one Welsh side will finish higher than the 2 Scottish teams is a pretty shocking.

Something has to change.

 

[dullonien]

I think this is innevetable tbh, just not enough supporters to go around, and a void of players in certain positions.

Imo this only works though if the existing regions are rebranded somewhat with East Wales (despite what some think, this has to be based in Cardiff), West Wales (Swansea would make most sense, population wise, but Llanelli have the stadium), then I'd love to seee the Valleys finally represented again, but is it too spread-out to sustain a region? Warriors didn't end well last time around!

Proper plans would need to be put in place to eventually return to 4 regions, with North Wales an obvious place to base it..

It would all need to sit alongside a complete overhaul of the Welsh prem and academies as well. The quality of the prem would need increasing to offset the loss of a region. The 30 odd players missing out on regional contracts would be an immediate stimulus as long as they can be kept in Wales and not lost to lower leagues in England/France.

Whatever happens, I just think it needs to extend further than simply culling a region. E.g. if Dragons are culled, does it make sense that 2/3 of of the regions left are located 10miles apart either side of the Loughor? If Scarlets and Ospreys are merged, does it make sense that Dragons, consistently the worst performing region based a stones throw from Cardiff is retained?

What about the valleys who have felt alienated for 20 years? What about mid and north Wales? With no region performing/delivering now is the time to address these issues and do things properly as none of them can demand a god damn thing because they're all ******* **** atm!

 

[The Seeker]

I like the current URC 16 team format (although I doubted it at first) and would hate to see any of them get dropped.

We Are Warriors!

 

[Reiser99]

I think this is innevetable tbh, just not enough supporters to go around, and a void of players in certain positions.

Imo this only works though if the existing regions are rebranded somewhat with East Wales (despite what some think, this has to be based in Cardiff), West Wales (Swansea would make most sense, population wise, but Llanelli have the stadium), then I'd love to seee the Valleys finally represented again, but is it too spread-out to sustain a region? Warriors didn't end well last time around!

Proper plans would need to be put in place to eventually return to 4 regions, with North Wales an obvious place to base it..

It would all need to sit alongside a complete overhaul of the Welsh prem and academies as well. The quality of the prem would need increasing to offset the loss of a region. The 30 odd players missing out on regional contracts would be an immediate stimulus as long as they can be kept in Wales and not lost to lower leagues in England/France.

Whatever happens, I just think it needs to extend further than simply culling a region. E.g. if Dragons are culled, does it make sense that 2/3 of of the regions left are located 10miles apart either side of the Loughor? If Scarlets and Ospreys are merged, does it make sense that Dragons, consistently the worst performing region based a stones throw from Cardiff is retained?

What about the valleys who have felt alienated for 20 years? What about mid and north Wales? With no region performing/delivering now is the time to address these issues and do things properly as none of them can demand a god damn thing because they're all ******* **** atm!

Like most issues similar to this do you look long term and accept it will take a while but potentially lead to something more concrete or try to do a short term fix and hope you can build from there. Tbh this plan sounds very short term. It's all focused on less money so less teams, which will then put off supporters so less money and less teams and it's just a downward spiral. Going backwards can be a catalyst for growth if there is a plan in place behind it, but it seems the WRU is more concerned with surviving the next few years, let alone what might happen in the next 10.

 

[mdaclarke]

I like the current URC 16 team format (although I doubted it at first) and would hate to see any of them get dropped.

We Are Warriors!

I don't see a Welsh team being dropped, if they did then your suggestion would be a good idea. Another idea would be to reform the Jaguares and put them in the Welsh Shield.

 

[higgik]

I could see dropping to 2 or 3 only if there was a full European League of say 16-20 teams but what really needs to happen is for the WRU to have fill time central contracts for 30-40 players to help out, get Ospreys to play at a proper size stadium.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Full European leagues makes me want to be sick.
The WRU also can't afford that amount of contracts.

Anglo welsh league is ergh thinking about it but it might be the only way for the England to get a 2 10 team leagues that are fully pro funded.
13 PRL teams + 3 Welsh teams + Ealing, Doncaster, Jersey and Cornish Pirates. would be bearable.

Maybe Ireland could add another team in there franchises split dublin up (Prays)

 

[higgik]

Full European leagues makes me want to be sick.
The WRU also can't afford that amount of contracts.

Anglo welsh league is ergh thinking about it but it might be the only way for the England to get a 2 10 team leagues that are fully pro funded.
13 PRL teams + 3 Welsh teams + Ealing, Doncaster, Jersey and Cornish Pirates. would be bearable.

Maybe Ireland could add another team in there franchises split dublin up (Prays)

What about a full British League.
10 British teams from URC.
13 PRL
plus Doncaster
Still think conferences is best way forward as it reduces number of games overall, but gets most teams playing each other.
2 divisions would lead to 1 division losing players and becoming weaker so end up with 1 group of 12.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Nope I don't want to be a domestic league with Irish or Scottish teams.
I mean if the best players move up then the reality is the players in that top division would move down.

 

[Amiga500]

Ah, the annual Taffies want to rearrange the deckchairs story.

Yeah, they do have only half the absolute population of Ireland, but that's not the entire story either. The population density around Newport, Swansea and Cardiff would be equivalent to Limerick and Belfast I'd reckon. [Lets leave the Dubs out of it as they are a shower anyway.]

Yet its Llanelli that has pretty much the best attendances of the 4 regions.

They've never really bought into the regions. Continual stories running the league (that they are seldom actually competitive in) down doesn't help. Nor does the continued espoused thing about attendances being bigger if they played the English clubs. If locality is the issue - how come the Welsh derby attendances are still ****?


Looking at the numbers, its clear that it is the biggest population centre that is the weakest link. Will they get rid of Cardiff Blues? Will they f**k. So what is the point?