Welsh exodus not necessarily a bad thing.

It depends on your point of view.

I cannot see both Wales flying high and a Welsh region challenging for the Heineken cup in the next 4/5 years. Not until central contracts anyway. However, what I can see is, the more players we lose to France, the better the national side will get (providing they have international release clauses for when Gatland needs them).

Think about it. Our best experienced players playing in the Top 14 and our best most promising youngsters getting regional game time week in week out in the competitive Pro 12.

When on form, players like Byrne, Hook, Powell & Phillips are still essential to the Wales squad and we cannot afford to omit anyone that doesn't play rugby in Wales. Wales only has 4 regions. The Top 14 and the English premiership have a lot more clubs to give many different players a chance. Wales could do with as many different clubs as possible for its national and potential national players to play in.

I cant blame any welsh or other nationality player going where the money is in what is a very short sporting career. What is annoying me at the moment is the way all the regions are sticking thier hands out wanting more WRU cash to keep the players in Wales. While we have attendances of 6-8k on average for a regional match we will never be able to compete with a french club atrracting 20k suppporters every home game. Two seasons ago i was fortunate enough to go to Viadana with the Ospreys for a heineken cup match, the matchday experience out there was superb and something i doubt we'll ever be able to replicate over here due to the culture we have especially in Wales! The cost of attending a match down at the liberty is beyond a joke. The last time we went as a family we spent over a £100 which when you consider the rugby on offer is pretty pi55 poor value for money. I could go on and on but just end up frustrated with it all so i'll shut up now! Anyine else got a view on this topic??

That is why I stopped going to the Liberty.

Dire atmosphere.
Poor crowd.
Expensive rubbish food.
Expensive tickets.

etc.. etc..

The problem may also be that we do not have enough people or a large enough geographical area to service 4 regions.

MAIN PROBLEMS:

4 regions
ALL within a 50 mile stretch of the M4 and ALL in South Wales.

Ireland has the entire nation split into 4 quarters. Dublin has over a million people. Belfast is huge, Munster covers half the country and several large towns and Galway is right over on the other side.

Wales rushed the regional thing big time. Geographically it should have been.

Newport
Merthyr
Llanelli or Swansea
Wrexham

THe Food aspect is an interesting one. I have noticed the catering standards at the Liberty, PyS and CCS is worse each year, it was never cheap but seems to have risen above inflation...

I haven't been to the Dave for a long time... But considering they seem to attract a decent crowd who are relatively happy with their region, if the food is better their might be a link...

The Regions should contact James Summerin or Tim McDougal in a TV Chef Regional extravaganza looking at upping the quality of the nosh served up to the fans...

I doubt you've EVER set foot in the Liberty western. Despite what you say, the seats where our group sits has been surrounded by the same fans for the past 5 yrs. I think more people are buying season tickets but matchday support has dropped. Its was £20 a ticket then and still is now. The food prices have increased, however it's gross so don't buy any. Rossi's is over the road!

From what I remember of getting food at the Dave it was awful - just a hotdog sausage out of a tin warmed up in a bun from a portocabin in the concourse - but I may just be remembering the worst bit.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:From what I remember of getting food at the Dave it was awful - just a hotdog sausage out of a tin warmed up in a bun from a portocabin in the concourse - but I may just be remembering the worst bit.

Oh well...! Cant be the food..

Shame, if the food was half decent they would increase the revenue.

To be honest I've never been to a stadium - rugby or football where the food has been either good or reasonable (except in the executive boxes in the MS, CCS and Swalec stadium the only 3 I've been in)

I keep seeing these shows on TV where the Chefs are always showing great food sold at a good price, certainly better for you, tastier and cheaper than a £5 frozen budget burger in a processed seeded bun.

There is some great food in Wales and some great chefs and cooks too. Imagine getting a hot pot of Cowl to go with your pint on a cold night like last weekend?

I feel my entrepreneurial streak kicking in.

At the beginnining of this season, Cardiff city fans were talking about boycotting Compass (the catering company at CCS) because their shyte food and drink prices were a total fecking rip off and they wanted what they previously had at Ninian Park. Who can blame them.
£3.70 for a rubbish pint of festers and £2.50ish for a Clarkes pie???

Out of interest what would you rather eat with your pint...?

Just talking about it with my neice and she said that at Glastonbury they were eating great currys and Thai food as well as pasties etc cheaply. All healthy too.

Compass are awful I should know I used to work for them (temporarily) they supply the MS as well and a load of arenas in England - all the money goes to a big external company rather than to the club, while the employees are paid minimum wage and are just trained to curn out cr&p.

Maes - not sure which Glastonbury your niece has been to, but everytime I've been (last time 2010) the food has been better and cheaper than any other festival I've been to but it's still £6 at least for fish and chips and the curries and noodles/chinese are still around £5 for a tray and isn't particularly great.

Oh well...!

I think that the next time i head down the Liberty I will be so full of Turkey that I wont want a snack... I used to really like their Steak Slices a few years ago. All gone now.

The idea of watching the match with a good pint and a Thai Curry sounds very appealing to me though...!

Maybe we should appeal to a TV chef to come in and kick some culinary ass...???

Smirnoffpriest wrote:Compass are awful I should know I used to work for them

Compass; another reason to add to the list.

maestegmafia wrote:Out of interest what would you rather eat with your pint...?

Just talking about it with my neice and she said that at Glastonbury they were eating great currys and Thai food as well as pasties etc cheaply. All healthy too.

A nice cornish pasty most probs providing the profits were benefiting my club. Compass at CCS can go an you know what, but Cardfiff RFC went along with it, so i'll watch Racing on the tele thanks.

Cardiff Dave wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:Compass are awful I should know I used to work for them

Compass; another reason to add to the list.

What list?

maestegmafia wrote:
The idea of watching the match with a good pint and a Thai Curry sounds very appealing to me though...!

Maybe we should appeal to a TV chef to come in and kick some culinary ass...???

Maybe we should encourage Deliah Smith to take over one of the regions, then we'd have some decent grub...

Ow I reckon, lot better looking than mike Cuddy...!

Where would you rather live, South Wales or the South of France?

Hmmm. Tricky.

This thread seems to have gone off in a different direction but I will indulge. Parents used to be in the pub trade and always said it’s the food that earns the money not the beer. So you maybe onto something here....Get some good wholesome tucker in for a fair price and maybe the clubs could double the profits. I know at Dave Parade you can get a curry/or will be able to soon as they are opening a curry house in the corner of the one of the stands.

SafeAsMilk wrote:Where would you rather live, South Wales or the South of France?

Hmmm. Tricky.

Well I moved out of the shyte hole that is London to the beautiful Wye valley in Monmouthshire. Not quite Provence but certainly the right direction. A lot nicer people too.

if it was a choice of playing for more money in front of bigger crowds, or for less money in front of empty seats i think i know what i would choose.

it is not good if all our best players are playing in france and england. wales were only competative in rwc because the coach had the squad for extended periods and for two big training camps. france and england wont let the wales players go, not even in the summer break before a world cup.

some players will get some personal development but team wales will suffer. expect more 4th place finishes (or worse) in th 6n if we loose adam, chartris, warbs, lydiate, faletau, north.

westernosprey wrote:4 regions
ALL within a 50 mile stretch of the M4 and ALL in South Wales.

Ireland has the entire nation split into 4 quarters. Dublin has over a million people. Belfast is huge, Munster covers half the country and several large towns and Galway is right over on the other side.

Wales rushed the regional thing big time. Geographically it should have been.

Newport
Merthyr
Llanelli or Swansea
Wrexham

Any reason why that didn't happen?

Back to the original post. I don't think any good can come from a substantial number of the best Welsh players playing somewhere else. IMO there is a direct link between strong regional rugby and the national team doing well. Attendance at the regions will hardly improve if the best payers are in France!

The WRU must not stick their heads in he sand and think that a modest showing at the world cup means everything is all right. I believe that a crisis for Welsh rugby is just around the corner and that the professional game is under threat. A few benefactors prop up the whole thing and a rethink is necessary if pro rugby is to thrive.

This will be very unpopular, but I would move to 2 professional regions, one in the west and one in the east. Centrally run by the WRU and not affiliated to any club. We would then have a strong group of semi professional clubs developing new talent. Two pro teams could compete with anyone in Europe.

Some think we should have more regions not less, but we don't have the player pool or finances to support more regions. A dozen top clubs and two centrally contracted regions will secure pro rugby and a strong national set up.

offload.

i think cutting two of the regional teams is rather drastic, but maybe we should consider reducing the number of pro teams.

it was a good idea to reduce the number of regions from 5 to 4 but the wrong team was axed. cardiffblues are still a city club. the o's and the scarlets are based within a 10 minute drive of each other. maybe the ospreys and scarletts should merge and cardiff blues be relocated to ponty or caerffili. ive seen more people watching abertridwr play than i have seen at the schitty schtadium

if we cut to 3 teams then we could cope with some players going abroad. we have more than enough quality players, we just dont have the suppoters to keep going with 4 teams. sad but true

I still think players gain a lot from experiencing different playing styles and opponents on a regular basis. Stephen Jones and Gareth Thomas both benefitted from playing in France as did Haskell.

SafeAsMilk wrote:I still think players gain a lot from experiencing different playing styles and opponents on a regular basis. Stephen Jones and Gareth Thomas both benefitted from playing in France as did Haskell.

true but at that time wales wernt missing half the 1stxv

we could see warburton, faletau, lydiate, chartris, adam jones, gethin and north joining, byrne, hook, powell and phillips abroad. that is a fair chunk of a welsh team. that is not good.

I can't see the regions letting the younger players - Warbs, Lydiate, North, Toby ect go to the French leagues and I imagine these players will want to stay and be settled in their regions and try and win cups before moving. Most players who go to France go when they are close to their 30's or because they aren't getting game time currently.

So I imagine we could loose Geth and A Jones which would be a huge blow but we do really need to start developing some back up for these players - also if it gets as bad as you envisage (which I don't think it will -being the optimist) then the WRU would be forced to negotiate extended access with the FRU (or Top14).

I'm hoping the move will really benefit Hook, Byrne and Charteris - and then suddenly we've got 5/6 good choices at FH, 3 good choices at FB and youngsters coming through (Biggar/Morgan, D Fish/L Williams ect) who will get game time in high pressure games.

As long as it doesn't go too far - but it hasn't really with Scottish rugby, and there don't seem to be signs that it is going to yet with Wales (we've lost 3 players because the O's didn't want them as they weren't performing and the other regions couldn't afford them, and then Efion and Charteris have gone as well.

I usually go to one of the 3 Wetherspoons in the City Centre before walking 10 minutes to Dave Parade so I get pished and fed for cheap.

Newport isn't much a problem as its litterally over the bridge from town but the other regions stadiums are a little out the way arent they ?

Cardiff Dave wrote:At the beginnining of this season, Cardiff city fans were talking about boycotting Compass (the catering company at CCS) because their shyte food and drink prices were a total fecking rip off and they wanted what they previously had at Ninian Park. Who can blame them.
£3.70 for a rubbish pint of festers and £2.50ish for a Clarkes pie???

It's £3.30 a pint at the Blues I think, £3.10 everywhere else.

Provided the players get released for Wales games and training it doesnt matter where they play.
Losing them won;t be a bad thing because it frees up places for young players to be given a chance, though players should onlyy leave when their established with Wales, we don't want young kids being poached out of academies, like what London Irish did with Shingler.

offload wrote:Well I moved out of the shyte hole that is London to the beautiful Wye valley in Monmouthshire. Not quite Provence but certainly the right direction. A lot nicer people too.

I have lived all over the world, there is no country more beautiful than Wales. We are very lucky.

Though i would urge any young man or woman to see the world an work abroad its a wonderful experience, I would prefer it if some professional rugby players waited until after their international retirement.

A nice touch of patriotism mm and yes there are beautiful parts of the principlality but the best in the world? You've hit the yuletide mulled a bit early my friend..

Breadvan - the Welsh coastal regions were voted the best in the world by Lonely Planet (or Rough Guide) - to be honest I'm so used to them that I prefer other places, but if I was ever away for an extended period I imagine I'd miss them. I'm not saying they are the best in the world, just what Lonely Planet said, but there is some stunning scenery in Wales.

I'm not a big drinker Breadvan, a personal opinion shared that is all....!

Wales is a beautiful place. Having lived there for many a year before moving back to York I can say it was an excellent place to live.

Very nice people too

Oh yeh i'm not slating the place! I live on the Gower Peninsula's doorstep so I agree. Can't beat a good walk with the dogs on Oxwich bay during a sunny winters day..

Nice place Breadvan - I really missed it when I lived in Pontypridd - you just don't get the same quality of view away from the coast (unless you've got a car to get to the tops of some of the valleys).

good post- i was discussing this with my dad, will benefit the international side (providing overseas players get international clauses)

and in regards to lakc of attendance- the problem is that rugby isint publicised enough and when you look at the area in which the 4 regions are based it takes up about half of the country now i know that north wales is unfortunately primarily football but they need to utilise us, as i know many people who jump at the chance to go to wales internationals (some of the girls would just to see some "hot" rugby players like hook etc (their words not mine) ) but because there is no region up here in the north we have no chance to watch top league rugby week in week out.

They really do need to develop RGC1404 - then once that club/region is set up in the Prem then they could develop a system where youngsters who aren't getting game time at the other regions loan their players to the North Wales region, that way they become stronger as does Welsh rugby, and North Wales fans will be able to see some of the potential future Wales stars