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The Future for Regional / Professional Rugby

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 12:32pm
What concerns me, like others have mentioned, is how the 8 gets put together. We know the original plan was a smaller Prem. This looks like a different route to that end. There's potential here once again to alienate people. It looks like a fudge to me. Welsh rugby's expert at fudging things.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Why Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 12:55pm
It will be a complete shambles no worries there we ten year behind other nations 
She asks why i still can't answer. I guess its in the blood.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Wasp Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 12:58pm
8 team Prem is a sensible idea I think. one from each region, one from RGC and 3 from the championship. 
We already have about a dozen contracted players not involved in the 1st XXIII each week, so there could be a spine of an "A" team there. 
It will still take a lot of money to get the best development. Probably more than we and the WRU currently spend on the 3 Premiership teams.

They probably shouldn't have let this get out before the EGM though!


Edited by Wasp - 18 March 2023 at 3:25pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote SA14 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 1:48pm
Originally posted by totallybiasedscarlet totallybiasedscarlet wrote:

Talk now of an 8 team tier between the regions and the premiership. Teams to be decided partly by nomination, partly by application with RGC definitely in. Anybody know anything about this? Sounds like yet another dogs dinner in the making to me.

Because the system in place is working ideally. Is this what's gonna happen? The WRU changes things but people will complain whatever it is just because it's the WRU. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote lofty evans Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 2:13pm
As long as something positive is happening good.


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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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 2:55pm
Originally posted by SA14 SA14 wrote:

Originally posted by totallybiasedscarlet totallybiasedscarlet wrote:

Talk now of an 8 team tier between the regions and the premiership. Teams to be decided partly by nomination, partly by application with RGC definitely in. Anybody know anything about this? Sounds like yet another dogs dinner in the making to me.

Because the system in place is working ideally. Is this what's gonna happen? The WRU changes things but people will complain whatever it is just because it's the WRU. 

Is that what you think I think? Ermm

Actually I think they've had a small prem in mind, that didn't get through, this is a different way of achieving the same aim. Except this time they're proposing something that I suspect will alienate fans and clubs again. Excuse me for having doubts.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Raised By Peregos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 5:03pm
I agree with an earlier poster... at this point I would re-brand the regions as Llanelli, Swansea, Cardiff and Newport and disband the semi-pro versions of those teams. We already lost the valleys link so the only supporters who could possibly really complain about this would be a VERY small number of local die-hards who ONLY support the semi-pro versions of the town's clubs, and Neath supporters, but I feel like they will already have made their peace with the Ospreys, and if not they can support Neath club side in whatever form that is.

I don't think a 14 team amateur / semi-pro premiership is every going to be a good enough level to bridge the gap so having an 8 team league in between seems to make sense. There will be some hurt with how those teams are decided... maybe you go "B Teams" of the 4 existing regions, RGC, London Welsh (essentially an Exiles team), two Valleys teams or an East and West teams. 

Or you let the current semi-pro sides leftover apply for it with strategic plans. 

If people wish to continue to just support the little corner of Wales they are from, then they will all have one team to support. If they want to support a local team and then their nearest Professional side e.g. Llandovery and then Llanelli then great. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Oracle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 8:23pm
Good post Clap
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Boisbach Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 March 2023 at 9:55pm
Originally posted by totallybiasedscarlet totallybiasedscarlet wrote:

Talk now of an 8 team tier between the regions and the premiership. Teams to be decided partly by nomination, partly by application with RGC definitely in. Anybody know anything about this? Sounds like yet another dogs dinner in the making to me.

This is just another way to form a reduced premiership league.

A new elite called league, 8 teams, each region picks one feeder team to represent them in this league, with RGC also guaranteed a place.

That leaves a further 3 places available, and the sides not selected by their region can apply.

Eg Ospreys could select Swansea RFC to represent them, leaving Aberavon , Bridgend and Neath to apply with all the other clubs not originally selected.

Those not selected will remain in the Prem (if it’s still called that) on much reduced funding I guess.

That’s my take on it.

Also hearing rumours on social media the RFC side are dispanding at the end if this season.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hoppy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 March 2023 at 9:05pm
From behind the Times paywall

I shall say no more

Wales rugby: Nigel Walker confident clubs will back new WRU constitution
Acting chief executive hopes next Sunday’s vote will shake up Welsh rugby structure

Stephen Jones
Sunday March 19 2023, 4.00pm, The Sunday Times

If you thought rugby could be tense on the field, try this. One week today, with the ill-starred Six Nations campaign over, Welsh rugby will decide, by a vote, whether to retain and even embellish its status as one of the truly great rugby nations — or to leave the top echelon, probably forever, losing its main sponsors and raft of its best players, whose salaries are being cut.

Nigel Walker, the acting chief executive of the Welsh Rugby Union, who with a small inner group has been trying to pilot the stricken union through the most testing days it has ever endured, is confident that next Sunday in Port Talbot, the 282 clubs of the WRU will vote in a new constitution. Backing of 75 per cent is needed to make the change.

“Confident, but not complacent,” Walker told The Sunday Times on Friday. The old union’s be-blazered structure — many feel it has crippled Welsh rugby for decades — would be demolished if the vote for change is carried. A 75 per cent vote would increase the number of independent board members, people who would be appointed for their skills and personalities rather than simply be elected from local rugby club conglomerations.

Secondly, the vote would reduce the number of elected national members — the time-serving committee men — on the board from eight to four and mean the end of officials being promoted way above their station. Furthermore, there would be an independent chairman, and four independent non-executive directors. The chairman of the Professional Rugby Board, which runs the professional game, would also be an independent. It might not sound very much. But by WRU standards, this is earth-shaking. And profound.

Also, five members of the new board would be women, including either the chairman or the chief executive — an irony considering that dynamic businesswomen have left the WRU on the grounds that, as one high-flyer said, “No one was listening to us.” How marvellous if the new intake takes a lead.

And at last, at last, the union would have a proper structure, even a dynamic one — a full 28 years since the game went pro. No rush, then.

Walker together with Ieuan Evans, the great former wing, has been around the country with colleagues completing a whistle-stop tour to sell the new deal to the outlying clubs. He senses a change in mood.

“When we did the visits there were questions as you would have expected, we have been through the most turbulent period in our history, and you go out to the clubs and you’re asking for governance change. They are bound to have questions, but they’ve come from a good place and we’ve answered them.

“There are always going to be some people against the change, but I think the vast majority of clubs and people in the rooms have been persuaded by our argument. We are talking to people out there every day, to clarify some of the points they are raising.”

Some of us felt that the evenings would be tasty, to say the least. “I wouldn’t characterise any of the opposition as dramatic, some people felt that they’d been bullied, a natural reaction, but what we did is re-stated our case.”

The WRU has been clever in putting up just one motion — a catch-all which brings in all the new-look moves and alters the constitution.

“Well for me, it’s a binary vote, you’re either for the Welsh Rugby Union modernising or you’re not,” Walker says.

“Now if you put ten people in a room, they might have a slightly different version of it, but the bottom line is we need the change, these are the changes we feel are necessary, so you’re either for change or you’re against change and what we didn’t want to do is put up four or five which allowed people to cherry pick.”

It is not unknown for meetings in Wales to dissolve into chaos, points of order, procedural rubbish and the like. Next week, it is Yes. Or No.

Did Walker discover on his travels some semblance of the old and glorious love affair between the country and the sport? He did. “I would hope so. I’ve sat on a few boards over the last 20 years and all we’re doing is asking for the Welsh Rugby Union Board to mirror the society that we live in. The governing body boards that I’ve sat on are no different to the Welsh Rugby Union, they just started this journey a few years ago.

“People are genuinely angry about the problems; you can’t watch a programme like the BBC documentary we had to endure and not feel anger.

“We have been to talk to nearly 300 clubs, and we found a common understanding, the common love that we want to protect, and to help us restore faith in the game in Wales in the vast majority of people. There is an enduring love.”

Walker says there is a plan B if the vote of not carried. You sense it may not be far reaching.

Of course, the battle for rugby’s soul and its technical proficiency continues — the vote does not offer salvation for everyone. The regional teams are still struggling and the union is standing firm in imposing significant cuts to player wages. But there is not much point in having Walker and Evans at the top if they are not trusted totally. They have done a great job these past months. There is also no point in having Warren Gatland, one of the great coaches of any era, if the ability and morale is dipping.

And no point in having a number for Sir Clive Woodward if you don’t ring it.

One measure which would genuinely help all concerned, surely, is to extract the clubs from the amorphous lump of confusion that is the URC, the bloated farce of a domestic competition which has participants from seven countries.

There is indeed an enduring love. Walker fits the role as quiet and skilful saviour. Those people gathering in Port Talbot next Sunday, would do well to consider that they are voting for love, and not for mediocrity and further decline.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Eastern outpost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 March 2023 at 9:11pm
Seven countries in the URC?
In a world where you can be anything – Be Kind.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Oracle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 March 2023 at 9:24pm
Why is this in the times , cant understand ...a big dig at the URC from a paper whose members probably support the failing english mess they call rugby ...but ignoring the sentiment , when they dont know how many countries are in the URC , it says to me  that the whole story is worthless in its entirety 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote gorau Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 March 2023 at 10:47pm
Wales Under 20s lost by 50 points tonight - 67 -17. Bug changes are needed. The mess starts with the WRU board. Dark and difficult times are ahead but over the last few months watching the Scarlets I have seen hope with our youngsters coming through. 
The WRU need to go, as simple as that.
eds
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Wasp Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 March 2023 at 10:50pm
Originally posted by Eastern outpost Eastern outpost wrote:

Seven countries in the URC?
  1. Wales
  2. RoI
  3. NI
  4. Italy
  5. Scott
  6. Ireland
  7. Ealing

We're still still here, but I wish we were in an Anglo-Welsh
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Wil Chips Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 March 2023 at 3:54am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mogwen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 March 2023 at 7:07am
SA?
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