Welsh rugby should keep Scarlets but scrap Cardiff, Ospreys and Dragons
With a decision expected at the end of the month, I back radical change to Welsh rugby’s regional structure.
I wasn’t entirely shocked to read this week that there were over 80,000 tickets remaining for Wales’s autumn internationals, even though they’re taking on three of the southern hemisphere’s Big Four, plus Japan.
What did flabbergast me, though, was the fact that they’re playing South Africa in a week where they’ll be without their English-based players while also depriving their four regions of their Wales players for domestic United Rugby Championship action.
How on earth they’ve managed to both screw their chances of beating the Springboks and hinder their club teams in the same week is beyond me, but it is not surprising.
Welsh rugby decisions
The Welsh Rugby Union is set to decide on what could be a drastic shift in its rugby landscape at the end of this month. Decisions on the future of how the four regions look will shape the sport in Wales for decades to come.
And though I have enjoyed watching the Scarlets, Ospreys, Cardiff and Dragons entertain since regional rugby replaced the traditional club game earlier this century, it is time those across the River Severn got radical.
What would I do? Keep the Scarlets, for sure, and then combine some or all of the others into an eastern Welsh team.
This second team could play across Swansea and Cardiff, while the Scarlets stay in Llanelli and Newport becomes the home of the U20 teams.
This team could be branded in a similar vein to the country’s Hundred team Welsh Fire, and even flogged off to Fire co-owner Sanjay Govil to build a powerhouse sporting empire in the country.
It sounds completely out of the picture but the Welsh Rugby Union isn’t exactly 100 years into the regional game and this offers scope to get out.
The north of the country seems out of the picture, though the work done up at RGC in Colwyn Bay has been welcome for those closer to Liverpool than Cardiff.
And the idea of any axed region joining the English Prem Rugby, however good it sounds, looks like being rejected at the moment. Though a way around this could be combining the Welsh Indigo Group Premiership – the teams unable to reach the URC – with Champ Rugby in a move that would, in reality, help English teams poach players from Welsh age-grade clubs.
What works?
Two teams in Wales works, combined with promoting some of the best players going abroad and plying their trade with clubs that’ll only enhance the national team further.
But I cannot look beyond the national team still being on a dire record of losses despite a victory in Japan in July, and the clubs in Wales are at the centre of a storm that has long been coming.
The governing body needs to end its awfully delivered messaging about the state of the game and be truthful, make tough decisions and get real with itself.
That, for me, is two regions with a huge increase in central funding for each. It is the only way.
Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance. Follow Ollie @OlliePhillips11