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Ospreys sign on the swansea.com stadium

Not anymore.
WRU currently own Cardiff. Dragons are private, Both signed new agreement; both are safe under it. Scarlets and Ospreys on old agreement so are financially screwed. WRU has basically given them 3 months to come up with a solution that leaves only one team in the West. St Helens will not get funding while there is a better stadium in Llanelli unless the Ospreys, or Swansea, have a guaranteed future, whatever Lance whatsisname spouts. As it stands, they don’t.

I suppose anything could still happen. This is the WRU. The only guarantee is that there will be a team playing out of Cardiff. Whether the Dragons agree to fold into that is anyone’s guess. Then one team in the West in all probability, playing out of Llanelli where the stadium exists. The WRU have fucked up so badly there is no money for anything else.

Oh, and yes, the crowds in Llanelli, even though dire, have still been a fair bit better than those in Swansea.
 
Is rugby dying in Wales? Not just at professional level but at local and schools level?
 
I think the English leagues would allow the Ospreys and Scarlets to grow much stronger in 5 years than they would as things stand
The Ospreys and Scarlets ain’t going to the English league. Only the two that are left standing have any chance of that, as that is the holy grail. It’ll be one team in the east and one team in the west, probably. The WRU are so shite though, they’ll probably end up stuck in the dead end URC.
 
Is rugby dying in Wales? Not just at professional level but at local and schools level?
Short answer yes. Long answer, it’s on life support depending on a bunch of incompetent self interested clowns.
 
Is rugby dying in Wales? Not just at professional level but at local and schools level?
The joke at school (about a decade ago - ahem) was always if you werent good enough to get in the football team you could always try Rugby - speaks to where it has been for a while... the second choice sport in most parts of Wales.
 
The joke at school (about a decade ago - ahem) was always if you werent good enough to get in the football team you could always try Rugby - speaks to where it has been for a while... the second choice sport in most parts of Wales.
Pretty much always has been where it wasn’t compulsory.
 
The joke at school (about a decade ago - ahem) was always if you werent good enough to get in the football team you could always try Rugby - speaks to where it has been for a while... the second choice sport in most parts of Wales.
Times have changed then. In Dunvant junior school we all played rugby in J1 and had a choice from J2 to J4 if we wanted to play football.
 
The joke at school (about a decade ago - ahem) was always if you werent good enough to get in the football team you could always try Rugby - speaks to where it has been for a while... the second choice sport in most parts of Wales.

When I was at school in the early 90's the kids used to arrange football matches themselves because the PE teachers for the most part were old school rugby obsessed types and weren't interested in doing anything else. We had a nice little four team league running at one point.

In the cities football has certainly been more popular in my lifetime. I mean, Swansea had the second? biggest Saturday football league in the UK at one point. Maybe the further out you go Rugby became more popular in the valley towns and villages where life was structured around the Rugby/Social club.
 
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Its not that many years ago(2000-2001), before the current Regions were formed, that the All Whites dropped out of what was then a South Wales League to play friendly games against all of the top English rugby clubs and I would imagine they would be welcomed with open arms should they apply to join the English Pyramid system, albeit starting at a few levels below the top league.
 
Its not that many years ago(2000-2001), before the current Regions were formed, that the All Whites dropped out of what was then a South Wales League to play friendly games against all of the top English rugby clubs and I would imagine they would be welcomed with open arms should they apply to join the English Pyramid system, albeit starting at a few levels below the top league.
Possibly but how would the players be funded from the start?
 
Its not that many years ago(2000-2001), before the current Regions were formed, that the All Whites dropped out of what was then a South Wales League to play friendly games against all of the top English rugby clubs and I would imagine they would be welcomed with open arms should they apply to join the English Pyramid system, albeit starting at a few levels below the top league.
Can't happen 'legally' (needs WRU approval) and wouldn't anyway for all sorts of reasons.

The Cardiff Swansea breakaway and the failure of the WRU to accept 5 clubs in the English pyramid was the moment Welsh rugby's long term fate was sealed, and not in a good way.

The only lifeline now is two superclubs, one in the east, one in the west, in the english premiership.
 
Can't happen 'legally' (needs WRU approval) and wouldn't anyway for all sorts of reasons.

The Cardiff Swansea breakaway and the failure of the WRU to accept 5 clubs in the English pyramid was the moment Welsh rugby's long term fate was sealed, and not in a good way.

The only lifeline now is two superclubs, one in the east, one in the west, in the english premiership.
Is that enough competition for players though, being at just two clubs? It is hard to initially compare how the Welsh team improved when the change to regional rugby happened. Two teams just doesn't seem enough of a player pool to me.
The worst thing of all of this is that Cardiff will keep their own team in whatever disguise it wears at the cost of the other more deserved areas just because it is the C word.
 
Is that enough competition for players though, being at just two clubs? It is hard to initially compare how the Welsh team improved when the change to regional rugby happened. Two teams just doesn't seem enough of a player pool to me.
The worst thing of all of this is that Cardiff will keep their own team in whatever disguise it wears at the cost of the other more deserved areas just because it is the C word.
No it’s not enough, but it’s all we can afford and the English prem won’t wear more than 2. We might have 3 if we stay in the URC, but that will just be managed decline. It’s all chickens coming home to roost at once. To think we once had a thriving 10 club league, but we’re not producing players anyway leading to high salaries for mediocre Welsh crap. As mentioned above, Welsh rugby is dying from the bottom up and being throttled from the top down. Two is not the preferred answer (you only have to look at Scotland and repeated failure) but it’s the only real answer we’ve got right now due to the hopeless mismanagement of the last 25 plus years. We need to be at least incubating in that English league, not dying on our arse in the one that’s run purely for the benefit of the Irish. The Cardiff point is galling but they have maintained half decent crowds.
 

Middlesbrough v Swansea City

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