#UniteAndFight |
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Wasp
Veteran Joined: 29 April 2008 Location: Sunny Pembs Status: Offline Points: 17557 |
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Is the Aviva door truly open for us? That's the question. If so then it's over the bridge we go. Carwyn - get the Newport relief road boult pronto butt |
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We're still still here, but I wish we were in an Anglo-Welsh
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lofty evans
Rambler Joined: 20 September 2007 Location: Gorseinon Status: Offline Points: 53415 |
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I was looking forward to the conga with my new onesy on....blast. |
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In 1972, Roy Bergiers scored that try and said "that was for you lofty"
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us" |
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lofty evans
Rambler Joined: 20 September 2007 Location: Gorseinon Status: Offline Points: 53415 |
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Agree Nobby is doing a superb and valued service of keeping me sane, throughout this War. When a doodlebug flies in on social websites, the ack ack gunner shots the bugger down with reason and sense. As the natives and my neighbours say in Swansea " i loves it i does"... Keep them rounds coming in... |
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In 1972, Roy Bergiers scored that try and said "that was for you lofty"
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us" |
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supertaf
Veteran Joined: 17 August 2004 Location: Down the Parc Status: Offline Points: 9079 |
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So is the entire issue around the WRU's commitments to the Pro12 and ERC?
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Scarlets - Suppliers of fine rugby since 1872
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redeyes
Moderator Group Joined: 16 August 2004 Status: Offline Points: 12247 |
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No, the fact there would be no increase in funding for the new term of the participation agreement is a huge issue as well.
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The stadium may change, but the dream will remain the same!
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Micro Duck
Moderator Group Joined: 10 October 2004 Location: Wales Status: Offline Points: 10698 |
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Used the colours of the four regions to create a new t-shirt with that great Welsh saying: MEWN UNDOD MAE NERTH No particular reason of course.
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New KALAMAFONI - BEAST MODE t-shirt now available online.
Plus a new 'Sosban Fach Scoundrels' range. Paste the link below into your URL: https://llanelli.teemill.com/ |
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Gary Coleman
Veteran Who are we? Joined: 31 August 2004 Location: Lao People?s Dem. Rep. Status: Offline Points: 5359 |
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So what!? I've made a hat out of egg cartons and sticky back plastic with the word Scarbluosprons written on it in multicolored crayon. I'm quite proud of it and am thining of wearing it to the office party.
Edited by Gary Coleman - 12 December 2013 at 10:18am |
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roy munster
Veteran Joined: 30 August 2010 Status: Offline Points: 15683 |
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catchy title or...scarletblackjackcardragonians |
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ROYMOND MUNTER MBE (FOR SERVICES TO THE COMBOVER)
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supertaf
Veteran Joined: 17 August 2004 Location: Down the Parc Status: Offline Points: 9079 |
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Scarlets - Suppliers of fine rugby since 1872
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redeyes
Moderator Group Joined: 16 August 2004 Status: Offline Points: 12247 |
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The WRU want to rule all levels of rugby in Wales, and don't seem to be worried how they achieve that. Starving the regions financially seems to be a tactic which would lead to the demise of the current regions. Thus allowing Rog and the rest of the clowns to set up new regions as they see fit. The alleged offer of joining the Aviva would have put a huge spanner in the Rog's plans.
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The stadium may change, but the dream will remain the same!
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Scarletrover
Veteran Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Wales Status: Offline Points: 7612 |
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Paul Rees' Guardian e-zine today sums up the whole sorry mess very well.
Connacht's players celebrate after winning their Heineken Cup match at Toulouse. Photograph: Remy Gabalda/AFP/Getty Images
There has been a belief that, never mind the entrenched positions taken by various parties, there will be a settlement by the end of the season that will ensure a six-country European club tournament for the next eight years. After all, candles have burned down to the end before, not least before the current accord was signed, on the day of the Heineken Cup final; brinkmanship has yielded reward. It may do again and this week the Rugby Football Union chief executive, Ian Ritchie, who has spent the season trying to broker a deal only to find his goalposts not so much moved as stolen, said it was imperative that everyone involved realised what they stood to lose. A danger in the current disagreement is that a number of avenues that lead to a resolution have been blocked off. The English clubs will not have anything to do with the Heineken Cup organisers, European Rugby Cup Ltd, but are prepared for the competition to be run by the Six Nations committee. That is not acceptable to the French rugby federation, which is campaigning for the way the game in Europe is run to be shaken up, proposing a Uefa-style organisation is formed, responsible not just for overseeing a major tournament but embracing all the smaller unions, and based in Geneva. It is why it wants next season to be a transitional one in Europe with ERC continuing to run the Heineken Cup for another year while the new company is set up, a wildly optimistic timescale given the reluctance of the Celtic nations to concede power to clubs to run the commercial side of a cross-border tournament. The FFR's plan would widen the franchise and provide a pathway for countries like Georgia and Russia. The Welsh regions are not prepared to play in a transitional Heineken Cup because it would mean a drop in income. Under the plan agreed by the RaboDirect Pro12 unions and the FFR at a meeting in Dublin last month that the RFU was excluded from, 20 teams will take part in the tournament next season when the Amlin Challenge Cup will be suspended. The Rabo would provide 12 of the teams, France six and the other two would be filled by sides from, probably, Spain and Portugal. It is estimated that a full-blown Heineken Cup next season would have been worth €60m but without the English and more than half the French clubs, that figure will drop to €40m. Even though France would provide less than a third of the sides, they will receive 50% of the pot, leaving the four Pro12 nations to divide the rest equally. The regions, who wanted to take part in the aborted Rugby Champions Cup proposed by the French and English clubs, were committed to the tournament by their union but are unwilling to take part because their income would drop and they would have to sell fixtures of little value. They wanted the Welsh Rugby Union to fight for the Pro12 pot to be divided 12 ways, according to the number of teams, but they feel that their union wants to take control of the regional game and cut the number of professional sides to three, meaning that an equal four-way split suits them. And they cannot understand why the French get half for supplying six unnamed clubs. The regions wrote to the WRU last week saying that the proposal for the Heineken Cup next season meant they would not be in a position to agree a new participation agreement for the next four seasons. They have until the end of the month to say yes or no knowing that it is not so much an accord they would be signing as a suicide note with the deal worth the same, before inflation, as it was in 2009. Both the regions and the WRU are looking at options should the agreement not be signed. The former are talking with Premiership Rugby about an Anglo-Welsh league while the union is considering setting up two professional teams in South Wales, in Neath and Pontypridd, and another in the north, with players on central contracts, but if the regions remained trading the governing body would struggle for players and next season's Heineken Cup would be even less prestigious. The Anglo-Welsh plan involves a five-year agreement and a 16-team league. The regions are prepared to go to court to win the right to play in a cross-border tournament without the consent of their union, but they will also take out an injunction against the WRU if it next month tries to set up new teams and centrally contract players. If successful, they would almost certainly have to put Anglo-Welsh plans on hold until the outcome of a hearing. A five-year Anglo-Welsh league, broadcast by BT Sport, would mean no way back for the Welsh and English clubs into the Heineken Cup as it is currently run. They envisage two smaller tournaments of 20 teams each, divided into four pools with sides playing each other once before the semi-finals and final. That would leave Ireland, Scotland and Italy in a perilous position, with the Pro12 stripped of the Welsh and the number of European weekends cut by three. They would struggle to hold on to their leading players and there would be a potential knock-on effect in the Six Nations championship. There are still logistical hurdles to be cleared before an Anglo-Welsh league is a viable option, not least the issues of promotion and relegation and funding. The regions want a moratorium on relegation while they replenish their stocks and they accept they would initially receive less income than the English, who currently receive more than £2.7m each for taking part in the Premiership, more than double what the regions get for being in the Pro12. The league is at this stage more of a threat than reality, a way of jolting the Pro 12 unions and getting them to negotiate about a six-country European club tournament again, but so much time has been wasted there is little left. And, never mind the season, there is no goodwill. Attitudes have hardened and there is no mood for compromise despite what everyone stands to lose, a bitter Heineken brew. WELSH REGIONS HAVE HAD GOOD REASON FOR KEEPING SILENTThe Welsh regions have said little publicly over the dispute, not least because there is a clause in the participation agreement that leaves them subject to a fine if they make critical comments about the WRU or any of its officials. The clause does not work in reverse and the battle between the two has tended to be one-sided in terms of media response, but opinion has shifted more towards the regions in recent weeks, especially after the WRU approached the players who were coming out of contract when Wales were in camp last month and pointed out potential pitfalls in signing new deals with their regions. The players were told that central contracts would be on offer next month if the participation agreement was not signed, an approach that ignored the attachment they had to their regions. Certainty for them lies elsewhere. The regions had been in talks with BT Sport about sponsoring them next season, when the Pro 12 will be televised by the company's arch-rivals, Sky. Both want to have the exclusive rights to Europe next season, the biggest single reason the dispute over the Heineken Cup has not been resolved. BT currently sponsors Edinburgh and Glasgow. Signing up the four Welsh regions would have meant that half the Pro12 teams would have worn their logo with no chance of Sky airbrushing it out. The stunt would not be worth it if the quartet joined an Anglo-Welsh league, although it would open the door for Sky to reciprocate. "I've said for years a British league would be absolutely fantastic," remarked the Ospreys No8 and former Wales captain, Ryan Jones. "I don't understand the nuts and bolts of it and all the intricacies but if I had my way that would be it. "We've got to create a domestic environment, from the national team down, where players don't want to leave. My worry is it's going to leave a scar on the domestic game which is going to take a while to heal. We've got to be competitive financially and we've got to offer above and beyond to keep our best players. The stars of tomorrow need to be watching the stars of today. "I'm tired of it and I know the other players here are tired of it and so are the Welsh public. The sooner this is resolved, the better." As one of Wales's senior players, Jones is able to speak out without fear of reprisal. One of the problems has been the lack of a proper debate in Wales, with coverage based on leaks rather than engagement. It was the WRU which insisted on the change from club to regional rugby 10 years ago, a move at the time it said would take a while to come to fruition because it was a radical departure. As Ian Ritchie said this week, a proper partnership is based on collaboration and working towards a common good. SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE TOURNAMENTS SHOW WAY FORWARDThe regions point to New Zealand's super rugby model as an example of what they are looking for. This month it was announced that the Waikato and Taranaki unions were taking a half share between them in the Chiefs franchise with private investors contributing the other 50% investment. The New Zealand Rugby Union acts as back-stop. It is a partnership with the two unions entrusted with growing the game in their areas. In Wales, when the Welsh Premiership was reduced to 10 clubs a couple of seasons ago, the number only remained at 12 when the Scarlets and Ospreys backed Carmarthen Athletic and Bridgend respectively, pumping in £150,000 a year and offering practical support at a time when the WRU preferred to pay more than it needed to reduce its debt on the Millennium Stadium. Australia, which in recent years has invested in its leading players and its super rugby franchises, announced this week that next year it is launching a new competition, the national rugby championship, which is designed to do for rugby there what the Currie Cup does for the game in South Africa and the provincial championship in New Zealand. The competition, which will run from August to November, will be self-funded through a big television deal and it will be run not by the ARU but a commission that includes representatives from the union, the country's players' association, the super rugby franchises and the commercial backers. It will be chaired by an independent sports consultant. While the NZRU and ARU decentralises, the WRU wants to assume total control in a country whose club system, so it liked to boast, was once the envy of the world. |
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Mike
Moderator Group Joined: 16 August 2004 Status: Offline Points: 21990 |
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So Roger was negotiating against the Welsh regions' interests within ERC.
Nice.
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KID A
Moderator Group Joined: 16 August 2004 Location: Cardiff Status: Offline Points: 27572 |
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The WRU may have come out of Wednesday's meeting making upbeat noises but the seems to have cut little ice with clubs or players. A report in the South Wales Echo says that supporters of the four regions are planning protests against the board at matches over the holiday period.
The newspaper reports that supporters' clubs of the four regions have united to express their views on the dispute which is damaging Welsh rugby. The regions are annoyed that until now the WRU has refused to meet with them to discuss the future of the regional game. The supporters plan a call for a resolution but if that fails then they will step up action. "This is the first time we have come together as four separate supporters' bodies and we are united and agreed that action is needed," Sarah Hopkins, chair of the Blues Supporters' Club, told the newspaper. "We are considering a number of options, including using the dynamic of the Christmas derbies. As a collective we feel it's time our voice was heard. This obviously affects the players but it affects the supporters too. But we are getting no response from the WRU." Read more at http://www.espnscrum.com/wales/rugby/story/208793.html#XPTDWbZ72kJOYe2H.99 |
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lofty evans
Rambler Joined: 20 September 2007 Location: Gorseinon Status: Offline Points: 53415 |
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Brilliant... |
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In 1972, Roy Bergiers scored that try and said "that was for you lofty"
"All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us" |
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157cb
Veteran Joined: 29 January 2007 Location: Wales Status: Offline Points: 17907 |
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Bring it on !!!!!!! Uniteandfight !!!!!!!!
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KID A
Moderator Group Joined: 16 August 2004 Location: Cardiff Status: Offline Points: 27572 |
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I think there could be an annoucnement by the SCs this evening
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