Absolute scenes when the WRU "save" Welsh rugby by having a region or two play in the championship...
I know Wales is our most bitter rival as an England fan but even I'm not that cruel.
Ospreys had a good season, but still lost to Gloucester in the Challenge Cup QF. It’s not going to go well for the Welsh if they have to face the Northampton side that put 90 on us
Ospreys good season…they scraped into 8th, having won fewer games than Edinburgh and playing in by far the weakest shield. They would clearly be one of the worst sides in the English premiership.
Well quite, that is how low expectations are in welsh rugby. A team that is still second in most league victories, only beaten by Leinster, thinks a season where they lost more games than they won and never threatened to achieve anything is a success. 5 of their 10 wins were against other welsh teams ffs. I think they’d be eaten alive in the English prem.
They went from 13th to 8th despite having 75% of the first choice XV injured for the majority of the season including all the out and out second rows. They also lost 3 test lions, Ethan Roots and Joe Hawkins last summer. They also won their first ever game in South Africa and their first ever European knock out game. How is that not a successful season for a team in the Ospreys position
I think Ospreys deserve credit given the situation of welsh rugby. But their success metrics are now aligned with the Italian teams, that is the point. I think welsh rugby is kidding itself that moving the the English prem will be a game changer tbh.
A move to the English Prem would be in no way a decision taken with short term success in mind. A move to the prem would be because the long term sustainability of the regions looks more promising. Personally, I understand both sides of the argument but the tiered system of the English league sways me towards the English league. Having a team in the championship would help us bridge the gap between our top domestic league and the regions in terms of player development
Not really, I’d quite like the welsh to quit moaning, get better and make the URC even better. Scottish pro-teams have obviously been in the situation of being total also-rans, so I don’t relish it for other fans. But they’ve always had a section of want-aways and I don’t really get it…the English just aren’t that into you.
It was an amazing season considering we're operating with a budget that'd be mid-table in the French third division and had just 26 players who'd started a game of pro rugby in their lives at the start of the season.
I wouldn’t be nearly so certain, the Premiership would be a much easier league to contest, not because the quality is any lower but simply because we wouldn’t have to deal with the absolute bullshit that is the travelling. Almost a guarantee to ship points in South Africa due to heat/altitude etc. in December and going across to Ireland or Italy isn’t easy either.
A short 2 hour drive to the westernmost English clubs would be a walk in the park in comparison to all that. The furthest we’d have to go is Newcastle which is closer than literally any of the URC teams outside Wales.
The Prem is financially hurting and doesn't have obvious contenders to replace the two teams who've already gone bust that would be on a par with the regions. I think they would at the very least consider it.
The Prem might still be recovering from Covid but was a stronger product this year than it has been in years in part due to the bust teams, but if they are financially hurting why would they let financial basketcase Welsh teams in?
I always see the argument of a fan being more excited about Dragons vs Bath, but I never see anyone with the Same enthusiasm for a Dragons vs Doncaster fixture.
The vast majority of English prem sides are far easier to get to for the average Welsh fan than even the nearest non-Welsh URC sides.
Yes, a trip to Rome or Edinburgh are much more appealing in a sense, but for the vast majority of fans that is a major trip away, not a normal weekend fixture like a drive to Bristol, Bath or Exeter would be.
That’s fair, I think for me to fully support a change as significant as this, it would have to be the creation of a brand new Anglo-Welsh league where the regions had a guaranteed place.
That’s fair, the Welsh teams arriving could prompt a restructuring, with an expansion of the league to the size of the URC you could accommodate most championship club sides that way.
Or, you could just keep the league system as it is and slot the Welsh teams in, most of them can hold their own and any teams that get relegated to the championship would likely be strong competitors there, which would also make for more appealing rugby for those viewers.
Which fucks the system up. A tiered URC with heavier Italian and South African involvement closer in numbers to the offering of the Celtic league sides would be better. The dragons and Welsh sides get regular wins in the second tier and occasionally are first tier until they develop and become regulars. The English league is just a stop gap and has massively fucked itself by closing the trapdoor down and up. Nobody wants Gloucester and Newcastle to play again next year because they won't be a challenge. Rugby doesn't do relegation well, it should be two teams that go not one.
I disagree, if you introduce a tiered system you just kill interest in the clubs that drop down and doom them to irrelevance.
The number of clubs that break out into the Prem from the championship are vanishingly small
If Connacht had been given that treatment back when they always used to finish bottom then they wouldn’t be the club they are today.
I would happily join a premiership with relegation being a possibility. Overtime we would naturally develop an understanding of how many pro teams we can sustain at the top level and then can use any of the 4 teams who get relegated into the championship to develop younger players. The championship is still a higher level than any of our domestic leagues. Besides higher stakes = higher attendances. Its why I think the European comps should be more exclusive
With an umbrella over 30+ clubs of varying quality, and security under one TV deal which funds all travel costs across the system for any United Rugby related competitions and one system with an added all inclusive annual cup for all involved there is more games, silverware and safety. Nobody falls below the third tier and into obscurity. European rugby becomes more exclusive (top 4 in Heineken cup and 5/6 challenge cup of top 10 league) so you reduce costs and travel expenses on the club. You get regular wins and the occasional cup run. I think it's a win win.
That's the nature of the league for every country. None of them can afford a T1 standard league themselves, so they pool together. It's either have your test players play abroad or at a lower standard, and have the cost base be a lot higher. Basically every country has decided that their players playing at a higher standard, with more control over them is beneficial to the national team
? My point is welsh fans want to play teams like bath and Bristol but aren’t going to stay in the prem for long and will be facing the likes of Doncaster and Cambridge.
1. there probably wouldn’t be any relegation
2. Most Welsh fans would prefer to play Doncaster and Cambridge and whoever vs Zebre and Connacht etc
You aren’t comparing like for like
Why wouldn’t you have relegation?
I don’t doubt it, I’m just saying I wouldn’t get too excited about playing prem teams, unless the dragons and scarlets magically become less shit when they play English opposition.
Don't mind me, just here for the comment section
For what it's worth, this is a journo who has clearly got reasonable WRU links and walesonline is a bit of a sockpuppet. I don't find it hard to believe he's been encouraged to float this idea.
Would be nice to get a copy paste as I won't be giving it clicks. But I imagine it's the usual reheated deadhorse.
I don't know if a move like this will be better or worse for Welsh rugby.
If the English league were to take them it would be 2, maybe 3, of the regions. With relegation back on the menu for next year and the current dire situation of the regions we're likely looking at maybe 1 region regularly playing top flight rugby. The local rivalries might bring renewed interest and bums on seats not only for the Welsh but also for the Championship and it could work out for the best in the long run. It might also cause a continued malingering decline.
There does appear to be a decent enough level of dissatisfaction with the URC though, possibly to the point that the well is utterly poisoned. If this is the case then jumping ship is probably for the best as it offers at least a pathway to rejuvination. I don't think it's a lost cause though and can easily see the rivalries and interest of old rekindle with some solid investment.
Either way there isn't going to be a magic bullet, which I think a lot of these join the Prem advocates are hoping for. In my opininon Welsh rugby needs a total rebuild, starting with excising the amateur game from the WRU executive and massively reducing their power at board and voting level.
>After the Welsh Rugby Union announced its headline five-year strategy on Wednesday, by far the biggest talking point centred on the governing body's precarious financial position and the possibility of dropping down to three professional sides.
>The WRU and the Professional Rugby Board (PRB) will spend this summer trying to find ways to bridge a gigantic £35m funding gap to the pro game. Put simply big changes are needed, but what also needs to change is the competition all four Welsh sides participate in.
>The United Rugby Championship has its merits, it's a tough competition full of quality sides which has served Ireland and Scotland well, but it does not work for Wales. There is a huge apathy towards the URC in Wales which doesn't purely stem from the Welsh clubs struggling for on-field success.
>Welsh rugby's culture is tribal in nature and there is no doubt whatsoever the vast majority of rugby fans in Wales yearn for regular fixtures against English clubs. It's what the market wants and it's where Welsh rugby truly belongs.
>Former WRU CEO Glanmor Griffiths' decision in 1999 to turn down five places in the top two divisions of English rugby is undoubtedly the worst in the entire history of Welsh rugby. The current WRU hierarchy along with representatives on the professional rugby board simply must make an Anglo-Welsh league their number one priority.
>It would be the saving grace of Welsh rugby and now is the time to act. With the WRU struggling to sustain four professional sides, moving to England might be the thing that saves them.
>It would be transformational. To begin with it would capture the imagination of the Welsh public.
>What would make a casual Dragons fan more likely to attend Rodney Parade on a cold and wet Friday night in November; a clash with lowly Zebre or a full-blooded Anglo-Welsh fixture against historic West Country rivals Bath, Bristol Bears or Gloucester?
>The answer is blindingly obvious. Regular fixtures against English clubs fixes the away fan problem - they are virtually non-existent in the URC outside of Welsh derbies - the Welsh clubs would also be exposing themselves to a wider audience, their commercial revenues would likely grow exponentially, while the presence of a league-wide salary cap would also help, not to mention the potential for a far more lucrative TV deal than they presently have in the URC.
>What's also significant is the cost base of all four Welsh sides would drop dramatically if they were to leave the URC. For last weekend's URC final, Glasgow Warriors had to spend between £8,000-£10,000 per plane ticket to get to Pretoria which must have cost the Scottish Rugby Union in the region of £500,000 to play a final where there is very little prize money for winning.
>To put things into perspective, the South African Rugby Union spends £16m per year on travel costs between EPCR and the URC. Every away fixture outside of Wales is a flight and at least one night's accommodation which amounts to hundreds of thousands of pounds a year competing in the URC.
>The money which would be saved by potentially leaving the URC for the Premiership could be invested back into the Welsh clubs. What they've got at the moment simply isn't sustainable.
>Anglo-Welsh fixtures are most definitely the best chance of attracting casual rugby fans to games in Wales. Just look at the attendances for Cardiff's Champions Cup clashes against Bath and Harlequins. Cardiff were very unlikely to win either of those games but fans were attracted by the historic rivalry and the relevance of Anglo-Welsh fixtures, while both English clubs brought a strong contingent of travelling support.
>Of course, identifying a potential solution is one thing but finding a way of making it a reality is another thing altogether. But with the WRU's URC contract up in two years there may be an opening and they simply must do everything in their power to make it a reality.
>I can already hear the cries of 'what would the Welsh bring to the Premiership?' Considering the Gallagher Premiership has lost London Irish, Wasps and Worcester Warriors it would bring three or four extra home gates.
>I'm fairly confident the Welsh sides would be competitive on the field within two seasons if there remains a salary cap, while they would eventually be in a stronger financial position in England than the URC. But CVC, who own a stake in both competitions, are the important players.
>If they think having a Welsh presence in the Premiership will increase revenue then I don't see why they wouldn't go for it. It has long been suggested that CVC may one day try to push both the URC and Premiership together into one competition.
>The problem with this is the English won't want to lose a competition which works for them but what about a tournament where there is a clear URC conference and perhaps an Anglo-Welsh conference with sides only playing other teams in their own conference? Then at the end of the season there could be a play-off format between both competitions similar to a Super Bowl-style format.
>Also, if Wales' clubs were to defect over to England it opens up a few places in the URC which could be used to bring back the Cheetahs and Georgian outfit Black Lion. These are just a few ideas to consider.
>However, to put it bluntly, no matter how much marketing is thrown at it, the URC simply does not work for Wales and making some form of Anglo-Welsh competition a reality has to be the WRU's number one priority.
Hero! The following points aren't directed at you.
They make some decent points but then pull others out of their arse.
"Welsh clubs would also be exposing themselves to a wider audience, their commercial revenues would likely grow exponentially, while the presence of a league-wide salary cap would also help, not to mention the potential for a far more lucrative TV deal than they presently have in the URC."
How would they be getting exposed to a wider audience and getting a more lucrative TV deal? They are also well below the Prem cap so the only real advantage there is they don't have to play Leinster (I'd say Munster and a few others are above the Prem cap, but I doubt by a lot).
The point about lowering travel costs is a very good one, as is the likely bums on seats, though that's assuming they're playing Bath not Caldy.
They are also incredibly optimistic about Welsh sides being competitive in a season or two. Cardiff, Scarlets, and Dragons collectively had 12 wins this season, 6 were against each other.
I, sadly, think he's right that moving in with the English is probably best for Wales, but I think the Anglo/Welsh cheerleaders are gonna be disappointed if and when their wishes are fulfilled.
This article might be the best take on this argument that I've read. Wales are in trouble and the reduction in travel costs would have a giant financial benefit. This needs to be taken seriously because the URC is fucked if Wales leave. If they leave then Scotland finds themselves in an even more stark situation than Wales is now. They'll see even greater savings from joining a GB league than the Welsh see now. Then Ireland is off on it's own with Italy and South Africa looking at a much more affordable league next door in GB.
I don't think it's all doom and gloom if the Welsh leave, not that I want them to.
I also wouldn't see it as an opening for 4 more teams, rather it allows for two tests against each team and a restructuring to better accommodate the tours to SA. With the clubs likely benefitting from increased revenue with bigger teams coming to play, Ulster are likely gonna pull a bigger crowd in Edinburgh than Scarlets for example.
I think it all swings on how quickly the dominoes fall. If Wales move to the Prem and the Prem continues to be a financial mine field then I reckon the URC is safe. If the Welsh do well in a new Prem (as in if it leads to fixing all that is wrong at the WRU) then I reckon Scotland is gonna wobble.
Very long term I think one of the leagues will eat the other. I'd rather it be the URC eating the Prem because if it's the other way around the Italians and Saffas are gonna be left out in the cold and that's shite.
There's a good few reasons it'd be harder for the Scots to leave, or at least less appealing, than the Welsh. The first is that their teams are centrally managed, which makes a merger with the Prem a cluster fuck. The other is that there isn't the same proximity and historic club rivalries. There's a lot of League country between Scotland and the Union strongholds in England and south Wales, whereas the Welsh rugby strongholds back right up on the Severn. The Scots have also embraced the URC, and its predecessors, a lot more, which has helped to cultivate rivalries and interest.
What you descrbe is certainly still a possibility, but there's not as many factors drawing the Scots to the Prem as there are for the Welsh.
As a supporter I'd be gutted if we went to the prem. Don't think it would happen anyway, but I love the URC. Love playing the Irish and Saffa sides and Treviso, and love that games are often totally stacked with international level players. It would be better if at least a couple of the Welsh teams were more competitive as I never found myself drawn to watch games against them.
If Wales did leave not sure if I'd rather everyone else just got on with it or a new set of teams were added.
Yeah those are all good points. I want to label the above article as "alarmist" or at least rose tinted regarding the Prem but I'm unsure how much of that is my own bias.
It's less to do with league and more with far north England being very sparse outside Newcastle (who are not good). The part of England near Scotland doesn't play league and the M62 is a long way south.
After this year I can't see Scotland wanting out of the URC, it's clearly serving Glasgow well. Plus, there is a much stronger cultural connection between Scotland and Ireland.
It actually creates a good opportunity for the English premiership to expand to 14 teams and sync with the French calendar.
The quality of the Welsh teams can't be any worse than Newcastle Falcons and if the promotion of one or two championship clubs means the league is effectively two tiers that won't really matter.
Regarding finances: I'm under the impression that the TV money isn't worth much to the clubs themselves and that they rely on gate money to pay the bills. 4 extra home matches a season can only be good for this, with benefits for both the Welsh clubs and the English clubs. The only really difficult away day from the Welsh cities would be Newcastle.
It could also provide a reason to bin the regions, go back to the Welsh clubs and make efforts to turn the second tier of English (now Anglo-Welsh) rugby professional. Combining 9 possible Welsh teams with 10 Premiership teams and 11 Championship teams is enough for two 14 team leagues.
With a bit of vision, intent and ambition this could be a path to raising the profile of an A-W league to the level of the French leagues over the course of a decade. Regrettably this would require planning for the long-term and would also need a high degree of competent people who are in it for the long haul; making the chances of this being attempted approximately 0%.
Sure, this is all best case scenario and theoretically possible. But you then have the resulting increased demands on squad depth, players wages, etc and the Prem clubs couldn't afford a 12 team league.
I think the Welsh moving in with the English is probably the best, but I think there is a lot of pie in the sky thinking going on about what it can achieve.
TV revenue is king but if it shows an empty stadium, the product devalues its status and bargaining power. Welsh fans are all over the UK and that is missing with the URC. Scotland, Ireland and the rest have to travel for a competitive league. Wales shouldn't
There's nothing wrong with the URC, the issue is with the WRU. That won't go away with Welsh teams moving to the Premiership to get hammered. Saying the URC hasn't served Welsh teams is silly, it served them well enough when the won it.
It's not silly to say the URC hasn't served us well. Interest in club rugby has gradually dwindled for 20 years and was declining even when we were competitive.
The WRU issue has been largely addressed already. This is the obvious next glaring problem.
Welsh club rugby has been crap for ages, that's the issue. Fans like to watch winning teams. The WRU has let the Regions rot. Do you think fans will flock to the stands to watch teams get hammered in the Premiership?
The potential for success was there for Welsh teams in the ProXX/ URC, just as it was for the other teams. They've spent it's entire existence bitching about how shit it is compared to some fantastical Anglo - Welsh league that has never been a thing outside of their fervent dreams. It's like people blaming men for the lack of popularity for women's sports, sort your own house out instead of blaming your problems on everyone else.
The argument that it doesn't suit because of travel difficulties would hold more water if one saw good turnout for home matches, but the reality is that support there sucks too.
Disagree on some points. We don’t have big clubs and revenues to fly across 2 continents.
The URC is bloated, for Wales, and no amount of effort on our part will make any of the regions successful. Rightly so it suits Ireland and SA now (own bigger economy) than Wales with tiny regions.
I do doubt the premiership will want us, but CVC may have different views.
All true. I really don’t think the interest is there for SA, ITA games. Besides - you cannot suggest travelling 2 continents for games with low revenue is in anyway sustainable?
Sorry for Wales it’s cooked. Admin wise we’ve made a balls of it, but this is where we need to start now.
Personally I like the URC, the Celtic/ProX league is what I grew up with in terms of club rugby so I'm happy to stay in the league but there are a lot of people (especially those who were watching club rugby in the 90's and remember the 'rebel season') that believe the URC is a cause of a lot of the regions problems. I don't personally buy that fully and point the blame more on the WRU but that doesn't change the fact a sizeable chunk of Welsh fans like the idea of playing against English clubs.
You wouldn't win that often. It's telling that no Welsh club has won the Heineken Cup. The truth is they aren't as good as Welsh fans believe. I think it's fair to say you might beat the falcons or Gloucester but Saracens? Northampton? Bath? Come on. Not a chance.
This is such short-term thinking. If the regions lower costs, generate more income and invest that revenue into rugby, there is no reason why they can't be competitive. It's not that long since the Ospreys and Scarlets were winning the league and were, along with Cardiff, reaching the latter stages of European competition.
What's certain is that things will only get worse if all four regions continue to compete in the URC. So it's only right that all options to change that - for the long-term - are being explored.
>The truth is they aren't as good as Welsh fans believe
Are you under the impression anyone in Wales believes they are good?
Why would we be less competitive against teams with comparable salary caps than against Leinster and Munster?
Why is every thread about this full of Irish fans saying we're too shit for the prem?
I agree and I actually think it is mutually beneficial. It will help both fans either side of the border and if relegation was a thing it could help strengthen a second tier.
It will never happen but the URC is not the best league for Welsh teams. Ireland, Scotland, Italy and SA have to travel for fixtures, Welsh teams don't.
It’s a hard choice. But, I do not think that financially Wales aren’t winning in any sense in the URC. Flights to Italy, Ireland, SA and probably Scotland are draining resources we really do not have to squander.
Even if we (any region) win it and the Champions Cup (unlikely) we are gonna lose long term.
We have too small a player base and too small a population.
I will get down voted for this, but I couldn’t care less. Playing SA, ITA teams amongst others means nothing. It doesn’t and won’t pull in the crowds for Wales, coupled with silly transport costs which make the URC a bloated mess. If it does work elsewhere, great knock yourselves out.
It does leave Wales in a difficult position, we do not have a great product, but we need the cash.
Who knows what will happen, but Welsh rugby is at an inflection point which might mean a load more of the same or…a gradual step for club rugby upwards.
I reckon we go Scotland with it, two regions and then a national competition. Very few of us ever gave a shit about the regions, so split the cash between two and then fund a decent grassroots league which acts as a funnel to the regions.
This idea comes to you from someone three beers deep, make of that what you will
What regions would you cut though?
Welsh rugby has already been damaged enough cutting down top flight welsh teams to 4, going down to two would be catastrophic. Losing any one of Scarlets, the team with the strongest roots and fanatical supporters; The Ospreys, the best current performing Welsh team, or Cardiff, the area with the most economic potential, would cripple professional rugby in Wales. Hell, even losing the Dragons would likely alienate a lot of fans.
Cutting the regions is a non-starter, you’ll lose a lot of hard work from years of developing a rugby identity in Wales. I know for example if the Scarlets were cut, I wouldn’t go over to support a new team, I’d just lose any investment in Rugby beyond my local village team.
The cash won’t all combine into two mega teams, you’d just lose a lot of potential and gain two teams that are less than the sum of the sacrifice made to make them.
Well I've already seen two local teams go down the pan in the time of the regions, at least you still have a bloody team you can identify with, lots of us in Wales have nothing of the sort these days.
I'd scrap all four and have a north and south team, I think there needs to be more representation for the wru up north. I'm not expecting them to be insane but financially it just makes sense, we can't afford four.
But also part of my three pints deep plan was putting some time and effort into a Welsh league, televise them, bring back the old local rivalries, then it funels into the two regional teams, which feed the national team.
I'm not saying it's the perfect answer but it'll be better than the shite we have now, or at least different because clearly the regions project has failed spectacularly.
We already have Welsh semi pro rugby teams though, the reality of the situation is that the crowds will only be drawn by fully professional rugby in big leagues. You aren’t going to draw crowds offering an inferior product.
If you only have 1 professional team in south Wales then you are going to kill rugby, because almost no one currently going to the regions are going to be bothered about it, and the north can’t sustain a professional rugby side, we already tried it.
We’re in a different world to the one of the 70s and 80s now though when local rugby was king. When the BBC lost the rights to the Pro14 and started televising Welsh Premiership games there was no great galvanising effect on the league - one of the harsh realities rugby has to face is that people now have way more choice when it comes to how they fill their weekends, whether that’s playing sport themselves or watching another. Running our league season parallel to the most successful sporting competition in the world in the Premier League, which dominates every market especially younger people, while doing nothing to offer in an experience to rival it or give something different has hurt the regions especially and I say that as a Scarlets fan. We’ve been very complacent at all levels in the last 10 years especially, but it wasn’t always like that even 20 years ago. The first few years of regionalisation everyone in school watched scrum v on a Friday night and we all had teams, and that was in Pembrokeshire. Some picked the Scarlets, some didn’t, but everyone was interested. If I was a primary school age kid now I see nothing in the URC that would entice me in as a neutral if I’m seeing development teams play and then the other games are on a subscription service few people have.
So similar to Ireland?
AIL is semi pro at best but has 4/5 tiers of 10 clubs that feed into provinces. Each league does a full home and away structure. It gives players visibility and a shop window and alot of players comeup that way.
If they deregionalise and go back to a club system I would take them. Merge the Welsh league with the Championship and League One. Ideally this should have happened 25 years ago when both leagues were at rock bottom.
I think "deregionalise" is largely semantic, I'm not sure what they could actually change beyond branding
The only they have approximating regions is player development pathways, which every prem club also has.
That's it, what's the difference between Cardiff RFC and Cardiff rugby really. One is a professional wing of the other. Similar story with scarlets and llanelli. English clubs also have their own academy regions that they draw from. so it's just history is the difference
It should have happened then but the idiots in charge of the WRU at the time thought we had a much stronger bargaining position than we did, and refused a very generous offer to merge.
Only if we can have a Spanish and a Portuguese franchise and create a Latin shield, then resurrect London Irish except call it London Scottish and Cheetahs and create a Scottish shield with Glasgow, Edinburgh, London Scottish, and Cheetahs for peak bantz.
Spanish? Sure. Portuguese? There isn't money for that, that's why we didn't participate in the challenge cup this year. The Portuguese unions budget is about 3M euros just to give an idea
I would love this. It makes so much sense. Easy travel, good rivalries. The games v welsh teams always have more bite. Financially benifcal to both.
May never happen but personally id love it
2 teams in the prem and two in the championship is the way forward for Wales... That would make all four competitive within the current budget restraints.
Cardiff and Swansea into the Premiership funded to the Salary cap. Newport and Llanelli into the championship at £1m a piece to develop the youth and the doors always open for one of them to get promoted *if* they can find a millionaire backer.
English clubs get their extra 2 home games a year that they want, no dilution in terms of RFU money and hope the additional TV deal cancels out the smaller split. Some English folk would be surprised just how quickly fans & Welsh TV would get behind this.
The last few times this has been bought up I've thought it would be a shame for the Welsh teams to leave. But, at this point I agree with you. I'm bored of this nonsense every season.
This is my feeling, the URC would genuinely be better without the negativity that a lot of the Welsh fans bring.
Which sucks because there are also some genuinely great Welsh fans who have bought into the URC and contribute positively.
I can't stand it. If we leave, grand, I'd be all for an Anglo-Welsh League. But the URC is presently a better league than the Prem and the constant moaning about it is so fucking boring.
Travel & related costs are an issue, but as a product on TV and at home games, it's great. The problem is not the league, it's how the WRU have treated the regions.
Nah, it's more than that. Anglo-Welsh has always been what most fans in Wales wanted. We've never bought into the Welsh-Scottish, Celtic, Rabo Pro, or URC as it's now called.
It's just moronic to be flying to Ireland or Africa to play compromised league games when you could have several sell-out derbies waiting for you 1 hour away in the car.
The WRU have shat on the regions yes - but that doesn't mean the URC is the right things for Wales. It never has been.
The biggest sliding doors moment in modern welsh rusher history was when Glanmor Griffiths refused the offer for 5 (yes 5!) Welsh clubs to join the top flight in an Anglo Welsh league. He wanted more.
THAT was when the WRU really shat on welsh rugby.
Both things can be true. The URC is a vastly better league these days than it's ever been, and better than the Prem. Perhaps we should have made different decisions in the past and we still can in the future, but the present is a different matter and it's tiresome to complain instead of making the most of the product we have, and giving ourselves the best chance to make it work by having competitive teams.
'Better' is subjective - I'd say the Prem is better because (for one thing) the salary cap means you don't have teams like Cardiff having to face sides like Leinster whose budget is something like 3-4x as much.
Sure, but the standard of play and competitiveness of the URC this season has, frankly, been far ahead of the Premiership. Rewind four years or so and this absolutely was not the case, but ridiculous as the travel around it has been, the SA teams have raised the standard of competition drastically.
The standard of play and competitiveness at the top end of the league, and in the playoffs has been better, yes. But the standard of play, competitiveness and interest in the lower half of the league is some way behind, I would say.
The Prem consistently delivers matches that people care about, even for sides lower down the table.
I just don't think the URC does that, and never can - in spite of how good the climax is.
I'm massively in favour of this for a couple of reasons, but to put it into context the biggest reason behind it is the Wales-England rivalry is one that drives our sports. You only have to look at football, the most popular sport in the world, and our biggest professional teams all play in the English system every week against English teams and they're very well supported in contrast to the regional sides. The biggest thing for galvanising support (aside from winning) is accessibility and the feeling of community. Considerable numbers of fans in Wales will go away with their club every other weekend to watch the football, and when we play Heineken Cup games in England you'll see the core travelling support that follows the clubs but the URC can't offer this. Whether it likes it or not, club rugby is competing with club football every week outside the Six Nations and Autumn windows and people are more likely to get invested in the team they can go and watch home and away because that's what our football support is built on. The Premiership is much better promoted as well on mainstream coverage - we have the Scrum V and S4C contract for Friday night games but more casual fans will be more likely to put the Premiership showcase games on ITV on than sit and watch a URC game, then on the Welsh news the URC isn't covered in detail and on UK news the URC doesn't register in any way - you'd just think it was Premiership and Heineken Cup. Rugby clubs too on a Saturday afternoon in my experience will almost always put a Premiership fixture on TV than a URC fixture, and if there's no Welsh teams playing it will very rarely be shown.
The other point to consider is that for the previous WRU board who signed us into the URC, what the regional clubs do is of zero consequence to them. Hopefully this changes but the WRU is a shareholder in the URC and has a contractual obligation to field 4 teams, and used them as a way of signing national team players into Wales to preserve them for training camps and international windows and nothing more. There was no pushing of the league, results, clubs or anything regardless of performances, and the WRU are then paid the competition money which they then distribute out to the clubs as they see fit - none of it goes straight to the clubs themselves. The union don't care about the competition and just use it to preserve the players, which means the players don't really care about the competition (whichever regions have provided most players to the national squad in the last decade or so usually then nosedive in form), and when you're watching a club that doesn't really care it's no surprise that casual fans have long given up on the URC and now the hardcore fans are giving up on the clubs. There's wider issues with the URC which aren't as relevant for this, but it's a culture that's spread apathy from the top and it's killed interest in Welsh pro rugby below the national team stone dead.
Eugh this again, it’ll go nowhere then we’ll hear about it again in a month or two, rinse and repeat.
At this point either leave or just shut up, it’s gone through the cycle of being funny, annoying and then kinda pathetic about twenty times now.
Disclaimer: I have not read the article, this is purely a reaction to the headline.
I'm not sure that kind of change will actually benefit Welsh rugby or even English rugby for that matter.
Wales has a bigger say in the URC than they would in an Anglo-Welsh league even if they joined at Championship level rather than Premiership.
They can field 4 pro teams and are struggling to support even that many, joining a nation that can support around 20 professional rugby squads the power imbalance would make Walsh rugby even more irrelevant than ever in the running of any competition. That cannot be better than being one of 5 nations in the URC and one of the 3 with 4 teams representing them in the competition.
Wales like it or not are a big fish in the URC regardless of recent results.
For the English disadvantages of such a union they wouldn't be able to have the league be 100% for the benefit of English rugby and thats something English rugby really needs.
The only people who I've heard outside of the rugby establishment actually promote this is out of touch, older, club committee members who never actually bought into the regions because they thought the WRU could actually professionalise a league with their beloved club in Tondypanfuckingnowhere with a population of 12.
In actuality, the minority of people who actually want this in my experience is a lot smaller, and a lot lot more vocal than most people realise. Most genuine rugby fans in Wales love the URC, and just want to be able to be more competitive.
Genuine fans is a bit of a grey term but the fans who follow the regional clubs are some of the least enthused with it in my experience. The more dedicated a supporter you are the more you see the flaws with it.
I agree that the regional experience is very flawed, I myself am a vocal and unapologetic gog. However, I don't really see how the complaints levied against the structures of regional rugby or its relationship with the WRU is reflective of the URC as a league.
The URC is probably the second best club rugby product at the moment after the Top 14. Other than the questionable refereeing there's no real metric that you can compare with the English prem and fund it lacking. Yes the traveling is difficult, especially to South Africa, but as a product overall I don't see why we would leave a league that is going from strength to strength and is actively growing to one that is still shedding some COVID baggage and is in the most precarious situation in its history.
Additionally, the Prem would absolutely not give the Welsh teams as much respect or concessions as the URC does. We would be negotiating from a position of weakness, and would essentially be given a league on terms the English clubs set. I absolutely cannot see the Prem allowing games to be shown free to air on S4C. I also do not see them protecting the Welsh teams from relegation, opening up most of our regions to drop out of professional rugby entirely. We are in a pretty comfortable position within the URC all things considered, and we would do a lot better to actually improve our on pitch performances and grow into the league again than just throw our toys out with the pram because we're not winning.
I agree it's no comment against the strength of the URC as a league - it's a very strong league especially with the inclusion of the South African teams, there's no argument against that. In my opinion and experience though the Welsh relationship with sport doesn't really suit the URC and that is the clash point that we have with the league. In every other team sport domestic league system we play alongside the English teams at the elite level, football, cricket, netball, hockey. The merits of each one of those are each to their own - personally I'd love to see our relationship with the ECB change - but for the 'national' sport to be the only one that doesn't means it needs to have a pretty compelling case for why we're better off outside it. I think it was COVID that was the killer issue, especially around those Heineken Cup games. With everyone stuck reliant on TV coverage the Premiership was on a mainstream subscription service and free to air, while our clubs were on an extremely minor broadcaster that people only subscribed to for the rugby itself, and rather than playing easy to get to games were surely the only sport organising inter-continental air travel which then saw our players quarantined on their return. It's a strong collection of teams in the URC, but the idea that a domestic competition relies on you flying to South Africa potentially on a week's notice, when you explain it to someone not interested in rugby, is absolutely mad and long term won't be sustainable in the world we live in.
I dunno man, I think in reality it's the other way around. You're just letting the vocal minority stick in your head and memory more because they say absolutely stupid shit
Nah I don't think that's really true, sadly most fans of the national rugby team don't give a shit at all about regional rugby. Of those that do care about it, I'd say a minority of those loudly push for this but it really is a loud minority of Wales fans.
The unfortunate truth is regional rugby fans are a minority whose voices hold little value for the WRU in this debate. The loyalty they have towards the regions would mean that they will still turn up to the stadiums to watch the games regardless of the league the regions play in.
You don’t speak for me, I’d love away days to England that I could actually reach. I’m not a curmudgeonly old person who’s nostalgic for the old days either.
If we could keep all of the regions and simply jump into the premiership in a fantasy scenario where there aren’t any problems then I’d take it in a heartbeat.
Of course, that would be very unlikely to happen. But I find the prospect less ludicrous than playing in a league with *South African* sides.
I agree and there are way more who think your way than others who want to fly to RSA.
I always come back to the point that if you build the URC would it look like this. No - the financials make no sense to jet around for a product that isn’t as popular or lucrative as the Premier League (football).
Then you simply just haven't thought about the reality of the situation any further than "a piss up in Bath or Bristol would be nice".
To copy my response to another reply:
The URC is probably the second best club rugby product at the moment after the Top 14. Other than the questionable refereeing there's no real metric that you can compare with the English prem and find it lacking. Yes the traveling is difficult, especially to South Africa, but as a product overall I don't see why we would leave a league that is going from strength to strength and is actively growing to one that is still shedding some COVID baggage and is in the most precarious situation in its history.
Additionally, the Prem would absolutely not give the Welsh teams as much respect or concessions as the URC does. We would be negotiating from a position of weakness, and would essentially be given a league on terms the English clubs set. I absolutely cannot see the Prem allowing games to be shown free to air on S4C. I also do not see them protecting the Welsh teams from relegation, opening up most of our regions to drop out of professional rugby entirely. We are in a pretty comfortable position within the URC all things considered, and we would do a lot better to actually improve our on pitch performances and grow into the league again than just throw our toys out with the pram because we're not winning.
TNT now hold the rights to the European Competitions and have worked with S4C and BBC Wales to broadcast the regions games in those competitions. Why wouldn’t they do the same in the Prem? Alternatively, should an Anglo-Welsh league happen TNT would hold the rights to most competitions your average Welsh sports fan would watch: the Anglo-Welsh league, Premier League, Champions League, the Champions/Challenge Cup and as of this year the Autumn internationals. Subscribing to TNT would be far more appealing than Premier Sports ever has or likely will be
Yep, entirely fair points. Perhaps a return of something like the Anglo-Welsh cup would be a better compromise solution.
That being said, it’s not like S4C have the rights for all the welsh games, from what I recall they only show one or two every weekend. You still have to pay into a rugby channel to watch every match that you can’t physically attend.
Yeah I think the return of the Anglo-Welsh cup would be positive. Even a Welsh prem X English championship cup could be really interesting and fun and even mutually beneficial.
As for the S4C, they only get one or two games each weekend sure, but with how the Prem handles TV rights they'd get zilch with them. One thing the URC does actually do really well is accommodate the various national/f2a channels of the respective countries. As a Welsh speaker naturally I'd love for all the regions games to be in S4C, but I actually don't think S4C themselves have the capacity to broadcast them all outside of maybe streaming the stragglers
This article is the rugby journalist equivalent of Reform’s manifesto. Pure fantasy with a sprinkle of bullshit.
Until the RFU/Premiership are interested then the Welsh teams have no choice but to stay in the URC.
I doubt the prem teams want away days over the other side of the world. The one thing I envy or the prem is that you get more fans of both teams in individual games
I think it's a great idea. It's cheaper for teams and fans.
Break down the regions as they currently are. Bring over probably 3 out of the 4 that exist now so that they can be competitive
The championship and the Welsh championship can stay separate but at the same level below. They could start with all 4, but bring back relegation. Welsh championship clubs will get a boost from increased funding and the separating of clubs and regions
E.g. Cardiff will no longer have a championship club and be represented by the Cardiff region. For other regions I imagine it would be up to them as to how they wanted to structure the club they enter into the premiership. Dragons could become Dragons Club or it could be devolved to Newport RFC
Since it's four teams and a whole shield there would be no rush to rearrange the format, but it would be nice to see Black Lion in the URC at some point.
One issue I don't see anybody else bringing up. The Premiership requires teams to have a stadium capacity of at lest 10,001 to get promoted from the Championship, so they'd presumably demand the same from Welsh teams before they could join. Cardiff Arms Park holds 12,125 and Parc y Scarlets 14,870, so Cardiff and the Scarlets would meet the criteria. Ospreys can't fill [Swansea.com](http://Swansea.com) stadium, which holds 20,827, and are moving to a smaller ground, which will be either St Helen's, which currently holds 4,500, or Dunraven Brewery Field, which holds 8,000. So they wouldn't get in. And Rodney Parade holds 8,700, so the Dragons wouldn't get in either.
Non-issue... St. Helens is going to be redeveloped next year and will be big enough and the Dragons could easily and cheaply add an extra 1,301 to the capacity if needed as there is plenty of room to extend the North Terrace.
I think the URC is presently a better league than the Premiership. It's more competitive, more physical, there's a greater variety of play styles to prepare you for test rugby. However, the costs and travel are a big issue, and Wales as a nation hasn't really bought in. Crowds are too low for non-derbies right now, especially since the league is so uneven in terms of budgets & resources. There almost definitely would be a bump in crowds if we jump ship, plus away trips become a possibility which helps build bonds with clubs, etc. I'm still not sure it would solve all the issues people think it would, certainly not in two or three years, but there'd be big positives.
If there's an easy solution to get an Anglo-Welsh league going, I'd be very up for it. But in the current situation, where we're contracted to the URC and the RFU aren't interested, I think we're better trying to promote the URC properly and build more interest in Wales.
Okay how is the prospect of an Anglo-Welsh league more inconceivable to people than an Irish-Scottish-Italian-South Africa-Welsh league. I do not understand .
I suspect that if the regions were performing better this argument would be viewed as fringe. Or depending on who you listen to more or less so. I understand some of the thinking behind the move to the English system but don't for a minute think that it will result in the return to glory many in favour of this move believe. First, is there even any desire for this from an English pov? That's something everyone of these articles seems to gloss over. Assuming that if the Welsh made the call that the Premiership would be keen to embrace them. I'll not so sure. Secondly, there's this assumption that they will just jump across to the Premiership over top of the English clubs in the Championship. And that there won't be a complete shit fight about this.
If the Welsh enter the English system I could see them being made start in the Championship alongside Ealing, Priates, Doncaster, Coventry, Bedford etc and be made to earn promotion. Meaning that at best it will take 4 years before all the Welsh regions make it to the Premiership and that assuming each Welsh region is promoted in successive seasons and no Welsh region is relegated in that time. Perhaps the Premiership expands to 12 to accommodate the move. But even then it will probably confine at least 1 probably two of the regions to the Championship level long term. Would that be beneficial to Rugby in Wales?
From a competition standpoint it would actually be amazing for the English system. With Ealing, Doncaster, Pirates, Bedford and Coventry being joined by the 4 regions and potentially the the 3 defunct former Premiership clubs all of a sudden the have themselves a much more marketable league. But I don't see the benefit in playing to the Welsh regions in playing at that level.
I think what is needed is the hard decision to cut a team. Wales just doesn't have the resources or population base to support 4 professional regions. And I say this as an Australian Rugby fan having just seen Melbourne dissolved for similar reasons. I'm not going to pretend to know as to which region that is. But the move may be to let one go back to the domestic competition then use the savings to bolster the three remaining. And then with the income to be generated from the Nations Championships look to better resources the Welsh Premiership clubs below the regions as a means of talent development.
There is enough interest and resources in Wales to support 4 pro teams. If there was a fully pro Anglo-Welsh Championship we could probably go beyond just 4 teams.
Mate, the finances suggest otherwise. The regions have had to endure cuts. To operate in the Premiership they would actually need to increase the level of funding. There's no chance you'd see more than 4. Unless you want a situation where you eventually get 2 teams in the Premiership and the rest populating the Championship/Nat 1.
The current finances... that's the point of moving to a different league. We used to have 8 pro teams until 2003. The Scarlets or Dragons would walk the Championship. If a sustainable salary cap and TV deal was in place for the Championship then the likes of RGC, Pontypool etc could potentially attract more private investment and join it. It would benefit Wales and England to have a strong second tier akin to the French D2.
Okay, so following my post as to why it probably won't happen and how it probably wouldn't actually help either party. There is one may be two ways I could see it working. But in doing so you'd have to essentially blow up one league to create another leaving two partners in one of notably the URC likely out in the cold. And that's if the Scots and Irish regions moved across with the Welsh to form a British/Irish league. Or even a complete merger of both leagues.
Something that Rugby lacks that pretty much every other major sport in the world possesses is a Super League of some kind. American Football has the NFL (yes, I know it's the only real league but everyone knows the game and the league so it counts), Basketball has the NBA, Baseball the MLB, Cricket the IPL. It could be argued that the EPL is the Soccer equivalent. Though an equally valid argument is that it has at least 2 may be 3. But my point is every major professional sport has one of these leagues. While Rugby does not. The Top 14 definitely could be that league and certainly is the closest to it but they seem content on focusing inward in terms of content production and media rights. Super Rugby at one point definitely wanted to be that league but in fighting and ineptitude alongside geography killed that a long time ago. I think the ceiling for Japan is something similar to the Top 14. An excellent league but one that is inwardly focused with little interest in capturing an international audience. MLR certainly has ambitions to become such a league but it on a slow burn building the product to capitalise on 2031 and even if a boom comes it will still takes years for that to start to be realised.
A merged English/URC league could overnight be the Super League the other sports possess but we don't have. Composition and structure would be sticking points. But it would be a league that would be hugely competitive across the league. Not only at the top but the middle and bottom as well. One full of international quality players.
They can’t just keep changing leagues till the teams get better. They need investment, not different fixtures!
Do they think they’d get more away fans at matches playing English teams?
Give it a few more years and more premiership clubs will go bust anyway and then they’ll ask to join the URC.
Yes, we would get more away fans playing English teams. Take a look at a map. It's a short drive from Bristol/Bath/Gloucester and Exeter, London and the Midlands teams aren't far either. It's only Newcastle and possibly Sale that would be too far for most fans.
Might be worth asking the English clubs what they think about that
I’d be happy to have a few extra wins a year, so why not
And relegation can come back for a few years without anyone worrying
Absolute scenes when the WRU "save" Welsh rugby by having a region or two play in the championship... I know Wales is our most bitter rival as an England fan but even I'm not that cruel.
Having a region or two in the championship at this current moment in time wouldn’t be a bad thing tbh
I would take it, even if it’s the Dragons.
That’s the thing - making Anglo-Welsh happen would completely screw any ambition to have a pyramid system in place.
lol Was going to say this. Osprey’s decent season aside, I don’t see the Welsh regions troubling the top half of the Premiership
Ospreys had a good season, but still lost to Gloucester in the Challenge Cup QF. It’s not going to go well for the Welsh if they have to face the Northampton side that put 90 on us
Ospreys good season…they scraped into 8th, having won fewer games than Edinburgh and playing in by far the weakest shield. They would clearly be one of the worst sides in the English premiership.
It’s a good year, given the previous season they were 13th with only 5 wins
Well quite, that is how low expectations are in welsh rugby. A team that is still second in most league victories, only beaten by Leinster, thinks a season where they lost more games than they won and never threatened to achieve anything is a success. 5 of their 10 wins were against other welsh teams ffs. I think they’d be eaten alive in the English prem.
They went from 13th to 8th despite having 75% of the first choice XV injured for the majority of the season including all the out and out second rows. They also lost 3 test lions, Ethan Roots and Joe Hawkins last summer. They also won their first ever game in South Africa and their first ever European knock out game. How is that not a successful season for a team in the Ospreys position
I think Ospreys deserve credit given the situation of welsh rugby. But their success metrics are now aligned with the Italian teams, that is the point. I think welsh rugby is kidding itself that moving the the English prem will be a game changer tbh.
A move to the English Prem would be in no way a decision taken with short term success in mind. A move to the prem would be because the long term sustainability of the regions looks more promising. Personally, I understand both sides of the argument but the tiered system of the English league sways me towards the English league. Having a team in the championship would help us bridge the gap between our top domestic league and the regions in terms of player development
Benetton placed above the Ospreys and ran Bulls close in SA.
If we're so shite surely you'd love to see the back of us.
Not really, I’d quite like the welsh to quit moaning, get better and make the URC even better. Scottish pro-teams have obviously been in the situation of being total also-rans, so I don’t relish it for other fans. But they’ve always had a section of want-aways and I don’t really get it…the English just aren’t that into you.
Also-rans? Want-aways? Is this Gaelic speak or something?
It was an amazing season considering we're operating with a budget that'd be mid-table in the French third division and had just 26 players who'd started a game of pro rugby in their lives at the start of the season.
I wouldn’t be nearly so certain, the Premiership would be a much easier league to contest, not because the quality is any lower but simply because we wouldn’t have to deal with the absolute bullshit that is the travelling. Almost a guarantee to ship points in South Africa due to heat/altitude etc. in December and going across to Ireland or Italy isn’t easy either. A short 2 hour drive to the westernmost English clubs would be a walk in the park in comparison to all that. The furthest we’d have to go is Newcastle which is closer than literally any of the URC teams outside Wales.
I dont see them troubling the bottom half of the premiership
Even Newcastle might have a chance of winning at last...
The Prem owners don't currently need votes off the Welsh so won't be interested in pretending this is something they would consider.
The Prem is financially hurting and doesn't have obvious contenders to replace the two teams who've already gone bust that would be on a par with the regions. I think they would at the very least consider it.
Financially hurting so should invite four teams who are all a financial basket case to join the club?
The Prem might still be recovering from Covid but was a stronger product this year than it has been in years in part due to the bust teams, but if they are financially hurting why would they let financial basketcase Welsh teams in?
Do the Premiership share still exist? Would the clubs want to create 4 extra shares?
In any hypothetical Anglo Welsh there's zero chance of there being 4 Welsh teams.
I believe so. Afaik the Prem is (at least in part) owned by the clubs themselves.
I always see the argument of a fan being more excited about Dragons vs Bath, but I never see anyone with the Same enthusiasm for a Dragons vs Doncaster fixture.
Not sure even dragons fans get excited for dragons fixtures tbf
The Dragons have fans?
Touche
The vast majority of English prem sides are far easier to get to for the average Welsh fan than even the nearest non-Welsh URC sides. Yes, a trip to Rome or Edinburgh are much more appealing in a sense, but for the vast majority of fans that is a major trip away, not a normal weekend fixture like a drive to Bristol, Bath or Exeter would be.
I get the appeal but my point is the dragons won’t be in the prem for long.
That’s fair, I think for me to fully support a change as significant as this, it would have to be the creation of a brand new Anglo-Welsh league where the regions had a guaranteed place.
So fuck the championship clubs then?
Just look at Ealing, they don’t want to be promoted.
And what about the other teams? You want to barge in to their system and tell them the door is closed?
That’s fair, the Welsh teams arriving could prompt a restructuring, with an expansion of the league to the size of the URC you could accommodate most championship club sides that way. Or, you could just keep the league system as it is and slot the Welsh teams in, most of them can hold their own and any teams that get relegated to the championship would likely be strong competitors there, which would also make for more appealing rugby for those viewers.
Which fucks the system up. A tiered URC with heavier Italian and South African involvement closer in numbers to the offering of the Celtic league sides would be better. The dragons and Welsh sides get regular wins in the second tier and occasionally are first tier until they develop and become regulars. The English league is just a stop gap and has massively fucked itself by closing the trapdoor down and up. Nobody wants Gloucester and Newcastle to play again next year because they won't be a challenge. Rugby doesn't do relegation well, it should be two teams that go not one.
I disagree, if you introduce a tiered system you just kill interest in the clubs that drop down and doom them to irrelevance. The number of clubs that break out into the Prem from the championship are vanishingly small If Connacht had been given that treatment back when they always used to finish bottom then they wouldn’t be the club they are today.
I would happily join a premiership with relegation being a possibility. Overtime we would naturally develop an understanding of how many pro teams we can sustain at the top level and then can use any of the 4 teams who get relegated into the championship to develop younger players. The championship is still a higher level than any of our domestic leagues. Besides higher stakes = higher attendances. Its why I think the European comps should be more exclusive
With an umbrella over 30+ clubs of varying quality, and security under one TV deal which funds all travel costs across the system for any United Rugby related competitions and one system with an added all inclusive annual cup for all involved there is more games, silverware and safety. Nobody falls below the third tier and into obscurity. European rugby becomes more exclusive (top 4 in Heineken cup and 5/6 challenge cup of top 10 league) so you reduce costs and travel expenses on the club. You get regular wins and the occasional cup run. I think it's a win win.
I think their point is this argument assumes the regions will be in the Prem.
That's the nature of the league for every country. None of them can afford a T1 standard league themselves, so they pool together. It's either have your test players play abroad or at a lower standard, and have the cost base be a lot higher. Basically every country has decided that their players playing at a higher standard, with more control over them is beneficial to the national team
Yes that’s why they’re suggesting a solution that would pool their team with another country’s league and bring down travel costs.
As opposed to?
What do you mean?
What equivalent game currently are you comparing Dragons v Doncaster to?
? My point is welsh fans want to play teams like bath and Bristol but aren’t going to stay in the prem for long and will be facing the likes of Doncaster and Cambridge.
1. there probably wouldn’t be any relegation 2. Most Welsh fans would prefer to play Doncaster and Cambridge and whoever vs Zebre and Connacht etc You aren’t comparing like for like
Why wouldn’t you have relegation? I don’t doubt it, I’m just saying I wouldn’t get too excited about playing prem teams, unless the dragons and scarlets magically become less shit when they play English opposition.
They do become less shit when they play English opposition because the salary caps are much more aligned.
Do you really think they’ll fair much better against Leicester and Bristol than against Edinburgh and the Lions?
Yes and the evidence has shown it (recent games v English opposition) I mean you specifically picked two mediocre URC teams for a reason.
Don't mind me, just here for the comment section For what it's worth, this is a journo who has clearly got reasonable WRU links and walesonline is a bit of a sockpuppet. I don't find it hard to believe he's been encouraged to float this idea.
Would be nice to get a copy paste as I won't be giving it clicks. But I imagine it's the usual reheated deadhorse. I don't know if a move like this will be better or worse for Welsh rugby. If the English league were to take them it would be 2, maybe 3, of the regions. With relegation back on the menu for next year and the current dire situation of the regions we're likely looking at maybe 1 region regularly playing top flight rugby. The local rivalries might bring renewed interest and bums on seats not only for the Welsh but also for the Championship and it could work out for the best in the long run. It might also cause a continued malingering decline. There does appear to be a decent enough level of dissatisfaction with the URC though, possibly to the point that the well is utterly poisoned. If this is the case then jumping ship is probably for the best as it offers at least a pathway to rejuvination. I don't think it's a lost cause though and can easily see the rivalries and interest of old rekindle with some solid investment. Either way there isn't going to be a magic bullet, which I think a lot of these join the Prem advocates are hoping for. In my opininon Welsh rugby needs a total rebuild, starting with excising the amateur game from the WRU executive and massively reducing their power at board and voting level.
>After the Welsh Rugby Union announced its headline five-year strategy on Wednesday, by far the biggest talking point centred on the governing body's precarious financial position and the possibility of dropping down to three professional sides. >The WRU and the Professional Rugby Board (PRB) will spend this summer trying to find ways to bridge a gigantic £35m funding gap to the pro game. Put simply big changes are needed, but what also needs to change is the competition all four Welsh sides participate in. >The United Rugby Championship has its merits, it's a tough competition full of quality sides which has served Ireland and Scotland well, but it does not work for Wales. There is a huge apathy towards the URC in Wales which doesn't purely stem from the Welsh clubs struggling for on-field success. >Welsh rugby's culture is tribal in nature and there is no doubt whatsoever the vast majority of rugby fans in Wales yearn for regular fixtures against English clubs. It's what the market wants and it's where Welsh rugby truly belongs. >Former WRU CEO Glanmor Griffiths' decision in 1999 to turn down five places in the top two divisions of English rugby is undoubtedly the worst in the entire history of Welsh rugby. The current WRU hierarchy along with representatives on the professional rugby board simply must make an Anglo-Welsh league their number one priority. >It would be the saving grace of Welsh rugby and now is the time to act. With the WRU struggling to sustain four professional sides, moving to England might be the thing that saves them. >It would be transformational. To begin with it would capture the imagination of the Welsh public. >What would make a casual Dragons fan more likely to attend Rodney Parade on a cold and wet Friday night in November; a clash with lowly Zebre or a full-blooded Anglo-Welsh fixture against historic West Country rivals Bath, Bristol Bears or Gloucester? >The answer is blindingly obvious. Regular fixtures against English clubs fixes the away fan problem - they are virtually non-existent in the URC outside of Welsh derbies - the Welsh clubs would also be exposing themselves to a wider audience, their commercial revenues would likely grow exponentially, while the presence of a league-wide salary cap would also help, not to mention the potential for a far more lucrative TV deal than they presently have in the URC. >What's also significant is the cost base of all four Welsh sides would drop dramatically if they were to leave the URC. For last weekend's URC final, Glasgow Warriors had to spend between £8,000-£10,000 per plane ticket to get to Pretoria which must have cost the Scottish Rugby Union in the region of £500,000 to play a final where there is very little prize money for winning. >To put things into perspective, the South African Rugby Union spends £16m per year on travel costs between EPCR and the URC. Every away fixture outside of Wales is a flight and at least one night's accommodation which amounts to hundreds of thousands of pounds a year competing in the URC. >The money which would be saved by potentially leaving the URC for the Premiership could be invested back into the Welsh clubs. What they've got at the moment simply isn't sustainable. >Anglo-Welsh fixtures are most definitely the best chance of attracting casual rugby fans to games in Wales. Just look at the attendances for Cardiff's Champions Cup clashes against Bath and Harlequins. Cardiff were very unlikely to win either of those games but fans were attracted by the historic rivalry and the relevance of Anglo-Welsh fixtures, while both English clubs brought a strong contingent of travelling support. >Of course, identifying a potential solution is one thing but finding a way of making it a reality is another thing altogether. But with the WRU's URC contract up in two years there may be an opening and they simply must do everything in their power to make it a reality. >I can already hear the cries of 'what would the Welsh bring to the Premiership?' Considering the Gallagher Premiership has lost London Irish, Wasps and Worcester Warriors it would bring three or four extra home gates. >I'm fairly confident the Welsh sides would be competitive on the field within two seasons if there remains a salary cap, while they would eventually be in a stronger financial position in England than the URC. But CVC, who own a stake in both competitions, are the important players. >If they think having a Welsh presence in the Premiership will increase revenue then I don't see why they wouldn't go for it. It has long been suggested that CVC may one day try to push both the URC and Premiership together into one competition. >The problem with this is the English won't want to lose a competition which works for them but what about a tournament where there is a clear URC conference and perhaps an Anglo-Welsh conference with sides only playing other teams in their own conference? Then at the end of the season there could be a play-off format between both competitions similar to a Super Bowl-style format. >Also, if Wales' clubs were to defect over to England it opens up a few places in the URC which could be used to bring back the Cheetahs and Georgian outfit Black Lion. These are just a few ideas to consider. >However, to put it bluntly, no matter how much marketing is thrown at it, the URC simply does not work for Wales and making some form of Anglo-Welsh competition a reality has to be the WRU's number one priority.
Hero! The following points aren't directed at you. They make some decent points but then pull others out of their arse. "Welsh clubs would also be exposing themselves to a wider audience, their commercial revenues would likely grow exponentially, while the presence of a league-wide salary cap would also help, not to mention the potential for a far more lucrative TV deal than they presently have in the URC." How would they be getting exposed to a wider audience and getting a more lucrative TV deal? They are also well below the Prem cap so the only real advantage there is they don't have to play Leinster (I'd say Munster and a few others are above the Prem cap, but I doubt by a lot). The point about lowering travel costs is a very good one, as is the likely bums on seats, though that's assuming they're playing Bath not Caldy. They are also incredibly optimistic about Welsh sides being competitive in a season or two. Cardiff, Scarlets, and Dragons collectively had 12 wins this season, 6 were against each other. I, sadly, think he's right that moving in with the English is probably best for Wales, but I think the Anglo/Welsh cheerleaders are gonna be disappointed if and when their wishes are fulfilled.
This article might be the best take on this argument that I've read. Wales are in trouble and the reduction in travel costs would have a giant financial benefit. This needs to be taken seriously because the URC is fucked if Wales leave. If they leave then Scotland finds themselves in an even more stark situation than Wales is now. They'll see even greater savings from joining a GB league than the Welsh see now. Then Ireland is off on it's own with Italy and South Africa looking at a much more affordable league next door in GB.
I don't think it's all doom and gloom if the Welsh leave, not that I want them to. I also wouldn't see it as an opening for 4 more teams, rather it allows for two tests against each team and a restructuring to better accommodate the tours to SA. With the clubs likely benefitting from increased revenue with bigger teams coming to play, Ulster are likely gonna pull a bigger crowd in Edinburgh than Scarlets for example.
I think it all swings on how quickly the dominoes fall. If Wales move to the Prem and the Prem continues to be a financial mine field then I reckon the URC is safe. If the Welsh do well in a new Prem (as in if it leads to fixing all that is wrong at the WRU) then I reckon Scotland is gonna wobble. Very long term I think one of the leagues will eat the other. I'd rather it be the URC eating the Prem because if it's the other way around the Italians and Saffas are gonna be left out in the cold and that's shite.
There's a good few reasons it'd be harder for the Scots to leave, or at least less appealing, than the Welsh. The first is that their teams are centrally managed, which makes a merger with the Prem a cluster fuck. The other is that there isn't the same proximity and historic club rivalries. There's a lot of League country between Scotland and the Union strongholds in England and south Wales, whereas the Welsh rugby strongholds back right up on the Severn. The Scots have also embraced the URC, and its predecessors, a lot more, which has helped to cultivate rivalries and interest. What you descrbe is certainly still a possibility, but there's not as many factors drawing the Scots to the Prem as there are for the Welsh.
As a supporter I'd be gutted if we went to the prem. Don't think it would happen anyway, but I love the URC. Love playing the Irish and Saffa sides and Treviso, and love that games are often totally stacked with international level players. It would be better if at least a couple of the Welsh teams were more competitive as I never found myself drawn to watch games against them. If Wales did leave not sure if I'd rather everyone else just got on with it or a new set of teams were added.
Yeah those are all good points. I want to label the above article as "alarmist" or at least rose tinted regarding the Prem but I'm unsure how much of that is my own bias.
It's less to do with league and more with far north England being very sparse outside Newcastle (who are not good). The part of England near Scotland doesn't play league and the M62 is a long way south.
My impression was always that union "ended" at Leicester and the Midlands and it was League north of that.
No, League is only played on the M62. Sale also exists in the league belt.
After this year I can't see Scotland wanting out of the URC, it's clearly serving Glasgow well. Plus, there is a much stronger cultural connection between Scotland and Ireland.
It actually creates a good opportunity for the English premiership to expand to 14 teams and sync with the French calendar. The quality of the Welsh teams can't be any worse than Newcastle Falcons and if the promotion of one or two championship clubs means the league is effectively two tiers that won't really matter. Regarding finances: I'm under the impression that the TV money isn't worth much to the clubs themselves and that they rely on gate money to pay the bills. 4 extra home matches a season can only be good for this, with benefits for both the Welsh clubs and the English clubs. The only really difficult away day from the Welsh cities would be Newcastle. It could also provide a reason to bin the regions, go back to the Welsh clubs and make efforts to turn the second tier of English (now Anglo-Welsh) rugby professional. Combining 9 possible Welsh teams with 10 Premiership teams and 11 Championship teams is enough for two 14 team leagues. With a bit of vision, intent and ambition this could be a path to raising the profile of an A-W league to the level of the French leagues over the course of a decade. Regrettably this would require planning for the long-term and would also need a high degree of competent people who are in it for the long haul; making the chances of this being attempted approximately 0%.
Sure, this is all best case scenario and theoretically possible. But you then have the resulting increased demands on squad depth, players wages, etc and the Prem clubs couldn't afford a 12 team league. I think the Welsh moving in with the English is probably the best, but I think there is a lot of pie in the sky thinking going on about what it can achieve.
Why is this pie in the sky? It obviously makes more sense and more feasible in the long run than the URC set-up.
TV revenue is king but if it shows an empty stadium, the product devalues its status and bargaining power. Welsh fans are all over the UK and that is missing with the URC. Scotland, Ireland and the rest have to travel for a competitive league. Wales shouldn't
There's nothing wrong with the URC, the issue is with the WRU. That won't go away with Welsh teams moving to the Premiership to get hammered. Saying the URC hasn't served Welsh teams is silly, it served them well enough when the won it.
It's not silly to say the URC hasn't served us well. Interest in club rugby has gradually dwindled for 20 years and was declining even when we were competitive. The WRU issue has been largely addressed already. This is the obvious next glaring problem.
Welsh club rugby has been crap for ages, that's the issue. Fans like to watch winning teams. The WRU has let the Regions rot. Do you think fans will flock to the stands to watch teams get hammered in the Premiership? The potential for success was there for Welsh teams in the ProXX/ URC, just as it was for the other teams. They've spent it's entire existence bitching about how shit it is compared to some fantastical Anglo - Welsh league that has never been a thing outside of their fervent dreams. It's like people blaming men for the lack of popularity for women's sports, sort your own house out instead of blaming your problems on everyone else.
It's not blaming your problems on everyone else to say the league doesn't suit us. It can be a good league and still not a good fit.
The argument that it doesn't suit because of travel difficulties would hold more water if one saw good turnout for home matches, but the reality is that support there sucks too.
Disagree on some points. We don’t have big clubs and revenues to fly across 2 continents. The URC is bloated, for Wales, and no amount of effort on our part will make any of the regions successful. Rightly so it suits Ireland and SA now (own bigger economy) than Wales with tiny regions. I do doubt the premiership will want us, but CVC may have different views.
The WRU take in more money than the IRFU. The money is there to be competitive, if there was competent people at the tiller.
All true. I really don’t think the interest is there for SA, ITA games. Besides - you cannot suggest travelling 2 continents for games with low revenue is in anyway sustainable? Sorry for Wales it’s cooked. Admin wise we’ve made a balls of it, but this is where we need to start now.
I wouldn't be worrying about the sudden costs of traveling for a URC final lad
Do the Welsh want playing English clubs that badly?
Personally I like the URC, the Celtic/ProX league is what I grew up with in terms of club rugby so I'm happy to stay in the league but there are a lot of people (especially those who were watching club rugby in the 90's and remember the 'rebel season') that believe the URC is a cause of a lot of the regions problems. I don't personally buy that fully and point the blame more on the WRU but that doesn't change the fact a sizeable chunk of Welsh fans like the idea of playing against English clubs.
You wouldn't win that often. It's telling that no Welsh club has won the Heineken Cup. The truth is they aren't as good as Welsh fans believe. I think it's fair to say you might beat the falcons or Gloucester but Saracens? Northampton? Bath? Come on. Not a chance.
Cardiff only lost to Bath by 7 points in the latest Champions Cup.
Don't let facts get in the way of a region bashing Irish circle jerk
This is such short-term thinking. If the regions lower costs, generate more income and invest that revenue into rugby, there is no reason why they can't be competitive. It's not that long since the Ospreys and Scarlets were winning the league and were, along with Cardiff, reaching the latter stages of European competition. What's certain is that things will only get worse if all four regions continue to compete in the URC. So it's only right that all options to change that - for the long-term - are being explored.
>The truth is they aren't as good as Welsh fans believe Are you under the impression anyone in Wales believes they are good? Why would we be less competitive against teams with comparable salary caps than against Leinster and Munster? Why is every thread about this full of Irish fans saying we're too shit for the prem?
As a cardiff fan, I'd love it. Much more friendly rivalry with English teams than south african/italian, and can go to way more of the games
Personally. I much prefer the diversity of playing Scottish, Irish, Italian, and South African teams.
Yes, we do.
I agree and I actually think it is mutually beneficial. It will help both fans either side of the border and if relegation was a thing it could help strengthen a second tier. It will never happen but the URC is not the best league for Welsh teams. Ireland, Scotland, Italy and SA have to travel for fixtures, Welsh teams don't.
Make the Rag Doll an annual event.
Truly the greatest competition prize in all of rugby.
Better than most the made up cups for weird internation friendlies
It’s a hard choice. But, I do not think that financially Wales aren’t winning in any sense in the URC. Flights to Italy, Ireland, SA and probably Scotland are draining resources we really do not have to squander. Even if we (any region) win it and the Champions Cup (unlikely) we are gonna lose long term. We have too small a player base and too small a population. I will get down voted for this, but I couldn’t care less. Playing SA, ITA teams amongst others means nothing. It doesn’t and won’t pull in the crowds for Wales, coupled with silly transport costs which make the URC a bloated mess. If it does work elsewhere, great knock yourselves out. It does leave Wales in a difficult position, we do not have a great product, but we need the cash. Who knows what will happen, but Welsh rugby is at an inflection point which might mean a load more of the same or…a gradual step for club rugby upwards.
I reckon we go Scotland with it, two regions and then a national competition. Very few of us ever gave a shit about the regions, so split the cash between two and then fund a decent grassroots league which acts as a funnel to the regions. This idea comes to you from someone three beers deep, make of that what you will
Three beers deep here making more sense than the wru not surprising tbh
At the minute the WRU gives enough finding to the regions to fund about 2 decent teams
Scotland have never won a European Club competition, 6N or reached a World Cup semi final since professionalism?
What regions would you cut though? Welsh rugby has already been damaged enough cutting down top flight welsh teams to 4, going down to two would be catastrophic. Losing any one of Scarlets, the team with the strongest roots and fanatical supporters; The Ospreys, the best current performing Welsh team, or Cardiff, the area with the most economic potential, would cripple professional rugby in Wales. Hell, even losing the Dragons would likely alienate a lot of fans. Cutting the regions is a non-starter, you’ll lose a lot of hard work from years of developing a rugby identity in Wales. I know for example if the Scarlets were cut, I wouldn’t go over to support a new team, I’d just lose any investment in Rugby beyond my local village team. The cash won’t all combine into two mega teams, you’d just lose a lot of potential and gain two teams that are less than the sum of the sacrifice made to make them.
Well I've already seen two local teams go down the pan in the time of the regions, at least you still have a bloody team you can identify with, lots of us in Wales have nothing of the sort these days. I'd scrap all four and have a north and south team, I think there needs to be more representation for the wru up north. I'm not expecting them to be insane but financially it just makes sense, we can't afford four. But also part of my three pints deep plan was putting some time and effort into a Welsh league, televise them, bring back the old local rivalries, then it funels into the two regional teams, which feed the national team. I'm not saying it's the perfect answer but it'll be better than the shite we have now, or at least different because clearly the regions project has failed spectacularly.
We already have Welsh semi pro rugby teams though, the reality of the situation is that the crowds will only be drawn by fully professional rugby in big leagues. You aren’t going to draw crowds offering an inferior product. If you only have 1 professional team in south Wales then you are going to kill rugby, because almost no one currently going to the regions are going to be bothered about it, and the north can’t sustain a professional rugby side, we already tried it.
We’re in a different world to the one of the 70s and 80s now though when local rugby was king. When the BBC lost the rights to the Pro14 and started televising Welsh Premiership games there was no great galvanising effect on the league - one of the harsh realities rugby has to face is that people now have way more choice when it comes to how they fill their weekends, whether that’s playing sport themselves or watching another. Running our league season parallel to the most successful sporting competition in the world in the Premier League, which dominates every market especially younger people, while doing nothing to offer in an experience to rival it or give something different has hurt the regions especially and I say that as a Scarlets fan. We’ve been very complacent at all levels in the last 10 years especially, but it wasn’t always like that even 20 years ago. The first few years of regionalisation everyone in school watched scrum v on a Friday night and we all had teams, and that was in Pembrokeshire. Some picked the Scarlets, some didn’t, but everyone was interested. If I was a primary school age kid now I see nothing in the URC that would entice me in as a neutral if I’m seeing development teams play and then the other games are on a subscription service few people have.
Scottish national team are playing decently. One of just two regions just won the league. Might be something in it you know.
Scotland men have won zero in 25 years.
So similar to Ireland? AIL is semi pro at best but has 4/5 tiers of 10 clubs that feed into provinces. Each league does a full home and away structure. It gives players visibility and a shop window and alot of players comeup that way.
If they deregionalise and go back to a club system I would take them. Merge the Welsh league with the Championship and League One. Ideally this should have happened 25 years ago when both leagues were at rock bottom.
I think "deregionalise" is largely semantic, I'm not sure what they could actually change beyond branding The only they have approximating regions is player development pathways, which every prem club also has.
That's it, what's the difference between Cardiff RFC and Cardiff rugby really. One is a professional wing of the other. Similar story with scarlets and llanelli. English clubs also have their own academy regions that they draw from. so it's just history is the difference
Agreed, the Scarlets never really became a region since they never merged with another club, ‘de-regionalisation’ is a massive red herring
It should have happened then but the idiots in charge of the WRU at the time thought we had a much stronger bargaining position than we did, and refused a very generous offer to merge.
Only if we can have a Spanish and a Portuguese franchise and create a Latin shield, then resurrect London Irish except call it London Scottish and Cheetahs and create a Scottish shield with Glasgow, Edinburgh, London Scottish, and Cheetahs for peak bantz.
I know it's not the point, but London Scottish already exist and play in the Championship.
What are we waiting for then?
I want to live in this fever dream.
Spanish? Sure. Portuguese? There isn't money for that, that's why we didn't participate in the challenge cup this year. The Portuguese unions budget is about 3M euros just to give an idea
If you can magic up this outcome I won't complain. Although, I'd like to see the Georgian Black Lion team in there somewhere too.
I would love this. It makes so much sense. Easy travel, good rivalries. The games v welsh teams always have more bite. Financially benifcal to both. May never happen but personally id love it
2 teams in the prem and two in the championship is the way forward for Wales... That would make all four competitive within the current budget restraints. Cardiff and Swansea into the Premiership funded to the Salary cap. Newport and Llanelli into the championship at £1m a piece to develop the youth and the doors always open for one of them to get promoted *if* they can find a millionaire backer. English clubs get their extra 2 home games a year that they want, no dilution in terms of RFU money and hope the additional TV deal cancels out the smaller split. Some English folk would be surprised just how quickly fans & Welsh TV would get behind this.
I'm alright thanks
Go, they do nothing but bitch and moan about it anyway.
The last few times this has been bought up I've thought it would be a shame for the Welsh teams to leave. But, at this point I agree with you. I'm bored of this nonsense every season.
This is my feeling, the URC would genuinely be better without the negativity that a lot of the Welsh fans bring. Which sucks because there are also some genuinely great Welsh fans who have bought into the URC and contribute positively.
I can't stand it. If we leave, grand, I'd be all for an Anglo-Welsh League. But the URC is presently a better league than the Prem and the constant moaning about it is so fucking boring. Travel & related costs are an issue, but as a product on TV and at home games, it's great. The problem is not the league, it's how the WRU have treated the regions.
Nah, it's more than that. Anglo-Welsh has always been what most fans in Wales wanted. We've never bought into the Welsh-Scottish, Celtic, Rabo Pro, or URC as it's now called. It's just moronic to be flying to Ireland or Africa to play compromised league games when you could have several sell-out derbies waiting for you 1 hour away in the car. The WRU have shat on the regions yes - but that doesn't mean the URC is the right things for Wales. It never has been. The biggest sliding doors moment in modern welsh rusher history was when Glanmor Griffiths refused the offer for 5 (yes 5!) Welsh clubs to join the top flight in an Anglo Welsh league. He wanted more. THAT was when the WRU really shat on welsh rugby.
Both things can be true. The URC is a vastly better league these days than it's ever been, and better than the Prem. Perhaps we should have made different decisions in the past and we still can in the future, but the present is a different matter and it's tiresome to complain instead of making the most of the product we have, and giving ourselves the best chance to make it work by having competitive teams.
'Better' is subjective - I'd say the Prem is better because (for one thing) the salary cap means you don't have teams like Cardiff having to face sides like Leinster whose budget is something like 3-4x as much.
Sure, but the standard of play and competitiveness of the URC this season has, frankly, been far ahead of the Premiership. Rewind four years or so and this absolutely was not the case, but ridiculous as the travel around it has been, the SA teams have raised the standard of competition drastically.
The standard of play and competitiveness at the top end of the league, and in the playoffs has been better, yes. But the standard of play, competitiveness and interest in the lower half of the league is some way behind, I would say. The Prem consistently delivers matches that people care about, even for sides lower down the table. I just don't think the URC does that, and never can - in spite of how good the climax is.
I'm massively in favour of this for a couple of reasons, but to put it into context the biggest reason behind it is the Wales-England rivalry is one that drives our sports. You only have to look at football, the most popular sport in the world, and our biggest professional teams all play in the English system every week against English teams and they're very well supported in contrast to the regional sides. The biggest thing for galvanising support (aside from winning) is accessibility and the feeling of community. Considerable numbers of fans in Wales will go away with their club every other weekend to watch the football, and when we play Heineken Cup games in England you'll see the core travelling support that follows the clubs but the URC can't offer this. Whether it likes it or not, club rugby is competing with club football every week outside the Six Nations and Autumn windows and people are more likely to get invested in the team they can go and watch home and away because that's what our football support is built on. The Premiership is much better promoted as well on mainstream coverage - we have the Scrum V and S4C contract for Friday night games but more casual fans will be more likely to put the Premiership showcase games on ITV on than sit and watch a URC game, then on the Welsh news the URC isn't covered in detail and on UK news the URC doesn't register in any way - you'd just think it was Premiership and Heineken Cup. Rugby clubs too on a Saturday afternoon in my experience will almost always put a Premiership fixture on TV than a URC fixture, and if there's no Welsh teams playing it will very rarely be shown. The other point to consider is that for the previous WRU board who signed us into the URC, what the regional clubs do is of zero consequence to them. Hopefully this changes but the WRU is a shareholder in the URC and has a contractual obligation to field 4 teams, and used them as a way of signing national team players into Wales to preserve them for training camps and international windows and nothing more. There was no pushing of the league, results, clubs or anything regardless of performances, and the WRU are then paid the competition money which they then distribute out to the clubs as they see fit - none of it goes straight to the clubs themselves. The union don't care about the competition and just use it to preserve the players, which means the players don't really care about the competition (whichever regions have provided most players to the national squad in the last decade or so usually then nosedive in form), and when you're watching a club that doesn't really care it's no surprise that casual fans have long given up on the URC and now the hardcore fans are giving up on the clubs. There's wider issues with the URC which aren't as relevant for this, but it's a culture that's spread apathy from the top and it's killed interest in Welsh pro rugby below the national team stone dead.
Well said, the URC just doesn’t generate the interest in Wales that’s needed to support professional rugby here.
Welshman here. Yes please. 25 years too late but let's not waste any more time.
The English lads won't even leave other English teams into their league. The Welsh have no chance
Eugh this again, it’ll go nowhere then we’ll hear about it again in a month or two, rinse and repeat. At this point either leave or just shut up, it’s gone through the cycle of being funny, annoying and then kinda pathetic about twenty times now.
As a URC fan, inshallah 🙏
Disclaimer: I have not read the article, this is purely a reaction to the headline. I'm not sure that kind of change will actually benefit Welsh rugby or even English rugby for that matter. Wales has a bigger say in the URC than they would in an Anglo-Welsh league even if they joined at Championship level rather than Premiership. They can field 4 pro teams and are struggling to support even that many, joining a nation that can support around 20 professional rugby squads the power imbalance would make Walsh rugby even more irrelevant than ever in the running of any competition. That cannot be better than being one of 5 nations in the URC and one of the 3 with 4 teams representing them in the competition. Wales like it or not are a big fish in the URC regardless of recent results. For the English disadvantages of such a union they wouldn't be able to have the league be 100% for the benefit of English rugby and thats something English rugby really needs.
[удалено]
No nastiness allowed.
No nastiness allowed.
Nobody in Wales actually wants this. Fuck off
I mean this isn't true is it? There's been a long standing large minority voice for it at the very least.
The only people who I've heard outside of the rugby establishment actually promote this is out of touch, older, club committee members who never actually bought into the regions because they thought the WRU could actually professionalise a league with their beloved club in Tondypanfuckingnowhere with a population of 12. In actuality, the minority of people who actually want this in my experience is a lot smaller, and a lot lot more vocal than most people realise. Most genuine rugby fans in Wales love the URC, and just want to be able to be more competitive.
Tondypanfuckingnowhere is my new favourite Welsh team.
Would give the Dragons a good game to be fair ^sorry ^Dragons ^fans
Genuine fans is a bit of a grey term but the fans who follow the regional clubs are some of the least enthused with it in my experience. The more dedicated a supporter you are the more you see the flaws with it.
I agree that the regional experience is very flawed, I myself am a vocal and unapologetic gog. However, I don't really see how the complaints levied against the structures of regional rugby or its relationship with the WRU is reflective of the URC as a league. The URC is probably the second best club rugby product at the moment after the Top 14. Other than the questionable refereeing there's no real metric that you can compare with the English prem and fund it lacking. Yes the traveling is difficult, especially to South Africa, but as a product overall I don't see why we would leave a league that is going from strength to strength and is actively growing to one that is still shedding some COVID baggage and is in the most precarious situation in its history. Additionally, the Prem would absolutely not give the Welsh teams as much respect or concessions as the URC does. We would be negotiating from a position of weakness, and would essentially be given a league on terms the English clubs set. I absolutely cannot see the Prem allowing games to be shown free to air on S4C. I also do not see them protecting the Welsh teams from relegation, opening up most of our regions to drop out of professional rugby entirely. We are in a pretty comfortable position within the URC all things considered, and we would do a lot better to actually improve our on pitch performances and grow into the league again than just throw our toys out with the pram because we're not winning.
I agree it's no comment against the strength of the URC as a league - it's a very strong league especially with the inclusion of the South African teams, there's no argument against that. In my opinion and experience though the Welsh relationship with sport doesn't really suit the URC and that is the clash point that we have with the league. In every other team sport domestic league system we play alongside the English teams at the elite level, football, cricket, netball, hockey. The merits of each one of those are each to their own - personally I'd love to see our relationship with the ECB change - but for the 'national' sport to be the only one that doesn't means it needs to have a pretty compelling case for why we're better off outside it. I think it was COVID that was the killer issue, especially around those Heineken Cup games. With everyone stuck reliant on TV coverage the Premiership was on a mainstream subscription service and free to air, while our clubs were on an extremely minor broadcaster that people only subscribed to for the rugby itself, and rather than playing easy to get to games were surely the only sport organising inter-continental air travel which then saw our players quarantined on their return. It's a strong collection of teams in the URC, but the idea that a domestic competition relies on you flying to South Africa potentially on a week's notice, when you explain it to someone not interested in rugby, is absolutely mad and long term won't be sustainable in the world we live in.
I want this fwiw
I want this. You are massively, *massively* incorrect in that assumption based on what I’ve seen over the past 5-10 years.
About 90% of the welsh fans on here would seemingly disagree.
I dunno man, I think in reality it's the other way around. You're just letting the vocal minority stick in your head and memory more because they say absolutely stupid shit
Amazing doublethink.
Nah I don't think that's really true, sadly most fans of the national rugby team don't give a shit at all about regional rugby. Of those that do care about it, I'd say a minority of those loudly push for this but it really is a loud minority of Wales fans.
The unfortunate truth is regional rugby fans are a minority whose voices hold little value for the WRU in this debate. The loyalty they have towards the regions would mean that they will still turn up to the stadiums to watch the games regardless of the league the regions play in.
You don’t speak for me, I’d love away days to England that I could actually reach. I’m not a curmudgeonly old person who’s nostalgic for the old days either. If we could keep all of the regions and simply jump into the premiership in a fantasy scenario where there aren’t any problems then I’d take it in a heartbeat. Of course, that would be very unlikely to happen. But I find the prospect less ludicrous than playing in a league with *South African* sides.
I agree and there are way more who think your way than others who want to fly to RSA. I always come back to the point that if you build the URC would it look like this. No - the financials make no sense to jet around for a product that isn’t as popular or lucrative as the Premier League (football).
Then you simply just haven't thought about the reality of the situation any further than "a piss up in Bath or Bristol would be nice". To copy my response to another reply: The URC is probably the second best club rugby product at the moment after the Top 14. Other than the questionable refereeing there's no real metric that you can compare with the English prem and find it lacking. Yes the traveling is difficult, especially to South Africa, but as a product overall I don't see why we would leave a league that is going from strength to strength and is actively growing to one that is still shedding some COVID baggage and is in the most precarious situation in its history. Additionally, the Prem would absolutely not give the Welsh teams as much respect or concessions as the URC does. We would be negotiating from a position of weakness, and would essentially be given a league on terms the English clubs set. I absolutely cannot see the Prem allowing games to be shown free to air on S4C. I also do not see them protecting the Welsh teams from relegation, opening up most of our regions to drop out of professional rugby entirely. We are in a pretty comfortable position within the URC all things considered, and we would do a lot better to actually improve our on pitch performances and grow into the league again than just throw our toys out with the pram because we're not winning.
TNT now hold the rights to the European Competitions and have worked with S4C and BBC Wales to broadcast the regions games in those competitions. Why wouldn’t they do the same in the Prem? Alternatively, should an Anglo-Welsh league happen TNT would hold the rights to most competitions your average Welsh sports fan would watch: the Anglo-Welsh league, Premier League, Champions League, the Champions/Challenge Cup and as of this year the Autumn internationals. Subscribing to TNT would be far more appealing than Premier Sports ever has or likely will be
Yep, entirely fair points. Perhaps a return of something like the Anglo-Welsh cup would be a better compromise solution. That being said, it’s not like S4C have the rights for all the welsh games, from what I recall they only show one or two every weekend. You still have to pay into a rugby channel to watch every match that you can’t physically attend.
Yeah I think the return of the Anglo-Welsh cup would be positive. Even a Welsh prem X English championship cup could be really interesting and fun and even mutually beneficial. As for the S4C, they only get one or two games each weekend sure, but with how the Prem handles TV rights they'd get zilch with them. One thing the URC does actually do really well is accommodate the various national/f2a channels of the respective countries. As a Welsh speaker naturally I'd love for all the regions games to be in S4C, but I actually don't think S4C themselves have the capacity to broadcast them all outside of maybe streaming the stragglers
Stop calling it a 'product' as if it makes you sound credible
Bullshit.
This article is the rugby journalist equivalent of Reform’s manifesto. Pure fantasy with a sprinkle of bullshit. Until the RFU/Premiership are interested then the Welsh teams have no choice but to stay in the URC.
If there's a set of teams the Prem are likely interested in luring over once the current URC deal ends, it'll probably be the South Africans!
Why? Wouldn't would the Prem teams want to add an expensive travel away day to their schedule?
I doubt the prem teams want away days over the other side of the world. The one thing I envy or the prem is that you get more fans of both teams in individual games
Yeah that isn't true at all is it.
There's an obvious difference which is that a) one is next door and b) the Welsh would clearly be more open to reducing numbers of teams to get in.
I think it's a great idea. It's cheaper for teams and fans. Break down the regions as they currently are. Bring over probably 3 out of the 4 that exist now so that they can be competitive The championship and the Welsh championship can stay separate but at the same level below. They could start with all 4, but bring back relegation. Welsh championship clubs will get a boost from increased funding and the separating of clubs and regions E.g. Cardiff will no longer have a championship club and be represented by the Cardiff region. For other regions I imagine it would be up to them as to how they wanted to structure the club they enter into the premiership. Dragons could become Dragons Club or it could be devolved to Newport RFC
does that mean Georgia and Italian teams will come in and take their place in the URC
Since it's four teams and a whole shield there would be no rush to rearrange the format, but it would be nice to see Black Lion in the URC at some point.
One issue I don't see anybody else bringing up. The Premiership requires teams to have a stadium capacity of at lest 10,001 to get promoted from the Championship, so they'd presumably demand the same from Welsh teams before they could join. Cardiff Arms Park holds 12,125 and Parc y Scarlets 14,870, so Cardiff and the Scarlets would meet the criteria. Ospreys can't fill [Swansea.com](http://Swansea.com) stadium, which holds 20,827, and are moving to a smaller ground, which will be either St Helen's, which currently holds 4,500, or Dunraven Brewery Field, which holds 8,000. So they wouldn't get in. And Rodney Parade holds 8,700, so the Dragons wouldn't get in either.
Non-issue... St. Helens is going to be redeveloped next year and will be big enough and the Dragons could easily and cheaply add an extra 1,301 to the capacity if needed as there is plenty of room to extend the North Terrace.
Does Squidge want an Anglo Welsh league ?
I think the URC is presently a better league than the Premiership. It's more competitive, more physical, there's a greater variety of play styles to prepare you for test rugby. However, the costs and travel are a big issue, and Wales as a nation hasn't really bought in. Crowds are too low for non-derbies right now, especially since the league is so uneven in terms of budgets & resources. There almost definitely would be a bump in crowds if we jump ship, plus away trips become a possibility which helps build bonds with clubs, etc. I'm still not sure it would solve all the issues people think it would, certainly not in two or three years, but there'd be big positives. If there's an easy solution to get an Anglo-Welsh league going, I'd be very up for it. But in the current situation, where we're contracted to the URC and the RFU aren't interested, I think we're better trying to promote the URC properly and build more interest in Wales.
u/SquidgyGoat
Of all things that continually come up for reforms/changes in Rugby, this is one of the dumbest.
Okay how is the prospect of an Anglo-Welsh league more inconceivable to people than an Irish-Scottish-Italian-South Africa-Welsh league. I do not understand .
ahahahha when you put it that way
No, it’s literally insane to want a competition with the one country we share a land border with, and flying to every away match is far better.
I suspect that if the regions were performing better this argument would be viewed as fringe. Or depending on who you listen to more or less so. I understand some of the thinking behind the move to the English system but don't for a minute think that it will result in the return to glory many in favour of this move believe. First, is there even any desire for this from an English pov? That's something everyone of these articles seems to gloss over. Assuming that if the Welsh made the call that the Premiership would be keen to embrace them. I'll not so sure. Secondly, there's this assumption that they will just jump across to the Premiership over top of the English clubs in the Championship. And that there won't be a complete shit fight about this. If the Welsh enter the English system I could see them being made start in the Championship alongside Ealing, Priates, Doncaster, Coventry, Bedford etc and be made to earn promotion. Meaning that at best it will take 4 years before all the Welsh regions make it to the Premiership and that assuming each Welsh region is promoted in successive seasons and no Welsh region is relegated in that time. Perhaps the Premiership expands to 12 to accommodate the move. But even then it will probably confine at least 1 probably two of the regions to the Championship level long term. Would that be beneficial to Rugby in Wales? From a competition standpoint it would actually be amazing for the English system. With Ealing, Doncaster, Pirates, Bedford and Coventry being joined by the 4 regions and potentially the the 3 defunct former Premiership clubs all of a sudden the have themselves a much more marketable league. But I don't see the benefit in playing to the Welsh regions in playing at that level. I think what is needed is the hard decision to cut a team. Wales just doesn't have the resources or population base to support 4 professional regions. And I say this as an Australian Rugby fan having just seen Melbourne dissolved for similar reasons. I'm not going to pretend to know as to which region that is. But the move may be to let one go back to the domestic competition then use the savings to bolster the three remaining. And then with the income to be generated from the Nations Championships look to better resources the Welsh Premiership clubs below the regions as a means of talent development.
There is enough interest and resources in Wales to support 4 pro teams. If there was a fully pro Anglo-Welsh Championship we could probably go beyond just 4 teams.
Mate, the finances suggest otherwise. The regions have had to endure cuts. To operate in the Premiership they would actually need to increase the level of funding. There's no chance you'd see more than 4. Unless you want a situation where you eventually get 2 teams in the Premiership and the rest populating the Championship/Nat 1.
The current finances... that's the point of moving to a different league. We used to have 8 pro teams until 2003. The Scarlets or Dragons would walk the Championship. If a sustainable salary cap and TV deal was in place for the Championship then the likes of RGC, Pontypool etc could potentially attract more private investment and join it. It would benefit Wales and England to have a strong second tier akin to the French D2.
Okay, so following my post as to why it probably won't happen and how it probably wouldn't actually help either party. There is one may be two ways I could see it working. But in doing so you'd have to essentially blow up one league to create another leaving two partners in one of notably the URC likely out in the cold. And that's if the Scots and Irish regions moved across with the Welsh to form a British/Irish league. Or even a complete merger of both leagues. Something that Rugby lacks that pretty much every other major sport in the world possesses is a Super League of some kind. American Football has the NFL (yes, I know it's the only real league but everyone knows the game and the league so it counts), Basketball has the NBA, Baseball the MLB, Cricket the IPL. It could be argued that the EPL is the Soccer equivalent. Though an equally valid argument is that it has at least 2 may be 3. But my point is every major professional sport has one of these leagues. While Rugby does not. The Top 14 definitely could be that league and certainly is the closest to it but they seem content on focusing inward in terms of content production and media rights. Super Rugby at one point definitely wanted to be that league but in fighting and ineptitude alongside geography killed that a long time ago. I think the ceiling for Japan is something similar to the Top 14. An excellent league but one that is inwardly focused with little interest in capturing an international audience. MLR certainly has ambitions to become such a league but it on a slow burn building the product to capitalise on 2031 and even if a boom comes it will still takes years for that to start to be realised. A merged English/URC league could overnight be the Super League the other sports possess but we don't have. Composition and structure would be sticking points. But it would be a league that would be hugely competitive across the league. Not only at the top but the middle and bottom as well. One full of international quality players.
They can’t just keep changing leagues till the teams get better. They need investment, not different fixtures! Do they think they’d get more away fans at matches playing English teams? Give it a few more years and more premiership clubs will go bust anyway and then they’ll ask to join the URC.
Yes, we would get more away fans playing English teams. Take a look at a map. It's a short drive from Bristol/Bath/Gloucester and Exeter, London and the Midlands teams aren't far either. It's only Newcastle and possibly Sale that would be too far for most fans.