DECIDING AREAS.

It's just another word for the capital I'm afraid, it's been mentioned before that the distance between Cardiff and the Dragons is the same as between the ourselves and Ospreys, so not sure if there's any real argument for the allocated regions if we are going to completely ignore current supporters.

I think they're ploughing on ahead with going down to 3 because they feel they've been told they need to be brave in changing things, even if that brave decision making isn't well thought out. 

Personally I think going down to three teams will be disastrous both in the short (currently and in the next 4 or so years) and long term (20+), and will only potentially have a marginal of benefit in the medium (5-15 years)

The brave and innovative thing the WRU could (or should) have done was to invest in a 5th region covering the north of Wales, say the country north of a line between Aberystwyth and Y Drenewydd (Newtown).

Miles from Cardiff.

This means that even if the WRU Cardiff and Newport merged the area that they would cover isn’t vast, meaning that upcoming players wouldn’t need to travel too far to attend academies /training sessions, and this would be even less so if both survived the chop.

However if one of the west sides folded/got axed/ merged, the area left to cover would be massive and unmanageable.  If the border moved down as far west as Bridgend (not likely as Dastardly Dave doesn’t seem to travel west of the Jail of Glamorgan) that would mean that the region/franchise would still be almost 90 miles wide (west to East) and Probably well over 100 miles (north to south).  This would be unacceptable in a modern country with superb rail and road networks, but West, Mid and North Wales have been derelected by both Westminster and Welsh governments so even being able to travel to training and matches would become a major challenge for many.

This would then most likely lead to the players of tomorrow turning to football instead, meaning that there would be another lost generation of rugby talent.

I remember when my nephew was in the scarlets academy about 14 years ago the commitment was hard then and we only lived about 6 miles away from PYS, when you have to commit to drive someone to training 3 times a week (whilst holding down a full time job and bringing up a small family of your own, plus my nephew was then having to train with his local club 2 nights a week and play every Sunday and occasionally on a Saturday.

Imagine a family having to drive their son/nephew from Fishguard to Llandarcy 3 or 4 times a week (usually after school/work) whilst holding down a full time job and trying to balance their lives with others, it would be almost  impossible to do so without it having a detrimental effect on their lives.

Great point, this is just one of many significant consequence of their current proposals. 

If you go by counties, it then paints an even more complicated picture.

Carmarthenshire is by far the furthest West than any other Southern Region (apart from Pembrokeshire), and is actually the biggest region out of all.

West Glamorgan Covers Swansea.

Mid or Central Glamorgan covers Bridgend.

Cardiff is in East Glamorgan.

And then Newport is in Gwent.

West, Mid/Central and Gwent are all similar size (on the map)

One thing is for sure, we may be close to Swansea, but we are by far not in any way in West Glamorgan and Swansea are not in Carmarthenshire.

So for me, West Wales is us (Carmarthenshire), Swansea and Cardiff are Central (in Glamorgan), and Newport is East (Gwent).

You can't have a 'region' called East Wales squeezed in between Cardiff and the border.

Unless East Wales includes Bristol Bath and Gloucester, so the region can start supplying players to Wales for once.