Wales based 23, is it possible?

There's talk of trying to mirrior the NZ idea again, which is only select players playing at Wales based teams.

1. Bevington
2. Rees
3. Jones
4. AWJ
5. Evans
6. Lydiate
7. Warburton
8. Faletau
9. Knoyle
10. Biggar
11. North
12. Roberts
13. Davies
14. Cuthbert
15. Halpenny

16. Owens 17. Andrews 18. Lee 19. Shingler 20. Davies 21. G. Davies 22. Priestland 23. Williams

We'll be without Lydiate, Faletau (maybe) and Roberts next season. Ryan Jones, Ashley Beck, Justin Tipuric to step into squad to replace them.

There's some other players who (imo) are looking good; Rhys Patchell, Jonathan Evans, Josh Navidi, Tom Prydie, Dan Evans, Lou Reed.

This seems to be a good solution to helping strengthen our club game, so what are we waiting for?

Morg,

Bevington still not convinced me so that might be a worry as for other I would put

Shingler in for Lydiate

Jones in for Faletau

Sc Williams in for Roberts

Lee and Andrews are both tightheads. Both doing well too. Plus we have Jarvis to return.

Looseheads we have Bevington, Rhodri Jones,

You wouldn't have to ignore the current foreign based players. Just the ones that move away from Wales in the future.

I do think that such a selection policy would help to reduce wage demands on the regions and strengthen their squads at the same time.

I forgot about Rhodri because he's injured. I guess that's why I left out Jarvis aswell. Four 2nd rows are also injured so perhaps edit in Lou Reed and Ryan Jones to the engine room.

Bedford, I don't rate Bevingon that highly either, nor Rhodri Jones. I think Paul James is by far the best LH available to us.

wales606 wrote:You wouldn't have to ignore the current foreign based players. Just the ones that move away from Wales in the future.

I do think that such a selection policy would help to reduce wage demands on the regions and strengthen their squads at the same time.

That is why it is potentially a restraint of trade. Under the guise of concerns about availability, fitness etc, the real agenda is to hold down players' wages and giove an artificial boost to the finances of the regions. Rugby protectionism, in other words.

I don't think it would work - all it takes is for a handful of stars (especially ones in their prime or getting to their 30's) to decide they've played enough for Wales and fancy a few years in France/England for triple the wages for a few seasons before coming back to Wales - and suddenly the Wales team starts suffering and looks threadbare, and there'll be a huge call and/or need to reverse the policy.

There was talk about this around 08/09 which was fine as most of the Welsh team played for the Ospreys and no big players played in England (besides Peel who'd been frozen out). Then the talk died down big time when Hook, Phillips and Byrne moved to France.

Priest,

Lets me honest out of the current bunch in France none are guaranteed starters, (Phillips maybe due to lack of options).

James would be a big loss as he is our best L/Head

With Lydiate and Roberts (though again wouldn't be a starter IMO) going then that will or could change, so I think it might work.

Yes but we could put this system in place now and all it would take is Lydiate, Halfpenny & Faletau to go (all of whom's contracts are up within the next season) and suddenly we'd be screaming for the policy to be dropped.

You can't really put in place a system where by you can't cover if some of your best players go abroad. It's ok saying now that ok we won't miss Hook, Phillips ect so lets put in place the policy but we need to be strong enough so that IF our best players do go, we have enough strength in depth so we can be in a position of strength to tell them they have to come back to play for Wales, rather than be begging them to come back coz the team is getting whitewashed.

I don't think we're in that position yet...

Don't get me wrong I think we would be stupid to put such a policy in place but most positions could be covered at the moment.

I think we'd miss Lydiate, Charteris, Jenkins and Phillips (even if he didn't start he'd be needed on the bench) hugely at the moment. As you say it could work but would be a very, very stupid policy. But regardless it would leave us very, very short

bedfordwelsh wrote:Don't get me wrong I think we would be stupid to put such a policy in place but most positions could be covered at the moment.

Its only NZ who actually execute this policy isn't it? I suppose england do too, but their clubs can afford to keep their players and poach from abroad.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:I think we'd miss Lydiate, Charteris, Jenkins and Phillips (even if he didn't start he'd be needed on the bench) hugely at the moment. As you say it could work but would be a very, very stupid policy. But regardless it would leave us very, very short

Priest,

On current form I don't think we would miss Jenkins Phillips or Roberts for that matter. Jenkins was clearly lacking gametime and if he continues to play back up to Sheridan then I would rather see us use Gill or develop Bevington.

Phillips is simply best (or maybe not) of a very average bunch of No9s at the moment, I would love to see G Davies given a crack.

I know, but even if say G Davies played and took to International rugby like a duck to water (or like North) and was amazing (and note he has had some bad games for the Scarlets, like all SH's this season), Phillips is still the best of the rest and would be missed for his presence of the bench. So we'd still be weakened by not selecting him.

Should be possible according to the 2011 Census:

"The borough of Blaenau Gwent in south-east Wales has the highest proportion of people without a passport. Almost a third (30%) of the population do not have the documentation for travelling abroad.
Nick Smith, Labour MP for Blaenau Gwent: the substantial proportion without a passport does not signify lack of curiosity for the outside world, he adds. "People here would jump at the chance of a minibreak to Rome, especially if the rugby's on[/i]