URC 2023/24

Sam Warburton suggesting a British Irish League to replace URC with 2 conferences including promotion and relegation,

Re S. African and Italian teams, he suggests Italian duo join Top 14 and S. Africans play among themselves.

I don't think the latter 2 will suggestions will work especially when S. Africans will be left on their own and Zebre would stuggle in Top 14 IMHO.

The travel to/from SA is an issue for both the URC & CC but there's no doubt including the SA teams in the URC has been a success.

I'd be slow to throw all our eggs into a basket which includes the English teams but some of the fixtures would be a bigger draw than some of the current URC fixtures and some away games might be easier to get to than some of the Welsh, SA or Italian teams.

I don't see it as a runner though.

'Why is he shilling the Premiership'?

It seems to come down to this. All the woes of the WRU and the Welsh teams are the URCs fault. All the solutions are to be found in the friendly bosom of the English.

He works for TNT

He's probably looking at a potential rivalry with the English. The regions are muck. All of the teams are in the bottom half. Attendance is poor and there's not much interest. Playing the sasanach would probably drum up support. Although presently, the regions wouldn't compete with the sides in England.

It will be interesting to see the attendance figure for the Dragons-Scarlets "best of the worst" game this evening. The Dragons supporters seem pretty loyal, although after the team's stuffing in Cardiff on Boxing Day, even they may decide to vote with their feet having decided that they've suffered enough!

The Ospreys have sold out the Neath ground (capacity a mere 8,000) for the Cardiff game because they can't access the Liberty Stadium (which seems ridiculous, surely they could have looked at playing the game either yesterday or next Friday evening).

It’s worth having a read of this article, the story of the Welsh clubs turning down the offer to join an Anglo-Welsh league around 1999, culminating with them instead joining the Anglo-Scottish, and ultimately Celtic League instead. And why they lament the decision so...

I’d have some (limited) sympathies for them tbh. If indeed the proposal by the English clubs would only have had 2 Welsh sides in the top tier of 14 (3 others in the second tier) and sides that were selected by PRL and not the WRU. You can see why the WRU would be hesitant to essentially kill their domestic league for a new league that didn’t seem to value their teams, combined with completely relinquishing control.

With that said, there a few insights into the very flawed and very amateurish thinking of Welsh Rugby. For starters, the often bandied truism (at least on social media) that cross-border (i.e., Anglo-Welsh) is historically what Welsh fans really care about (in turn creating more interest and more sustainable economic conditions) never seems to have existed. In terms of emotional aspects, the Welsh more or less exist to hate the English, that's certainly true. But is there any historical evidence of thriving cross-border competition prior to the Heineken Cup? The article instead suggests that Welsh teams were struggling to sustain themselves (i.e., just playing each other) in the late 90s, and were seeking an alternative competition such as an Anglo-Welsh league. It seems as though the only time Welsh and English sides played each other semi-regularly was in the “rebel” season of 1998, when English and Welsh clubs were arguing with their respective ruling bodies, and set up a tournament of friendlies between each other.

So I have no idea where statements like this from journalist Peter Jackson (in 2022) come from:

The attractive part of Welsh rugby as it was then was the cross border matches and here was a opportunity to maintain those fixtures but make them even more meaningful within the context of a league structure featuring promotion and relegation. It would have been fantastic.

Outside of the rebel season, when were such fixtures even a part of Welsh Rugby? (Maybe I'm missing something?)

And as for such fixtures being theoretically “attractive”, that article points out:

As for the rebel season, well that petered out somewhat, with English clubs increasingly fielding second string sides

So it really makes you wonder how (again, in 2022) people like Gareth Davies could say things like:

When you are playing against the likes of Bath, Exeter, Gloucester and Bristol - four teams just 60, 70 miles away - you are looking at putting 2,000 on the gate each week with travelling fans.

It all seems to be an assumption, rather than a memory. Yet Davies still makes the point regarding the decision not to join the Anglo-Welsh league:

It was a huge missed opportunity and if we had said yes you would have had a club-based elite and probably never gone to regions.

And remember, he's talking about clubs here, not regions. I.e., in 2022, leading thinkers in Welsh rugby think their five “elite” clubs (we are talking about Cardiff, Swansea, Llanelli, Pontypridd and Ebbw Vale) would now be sustainable as part of an Anglo-Welsh league where teams in cities like Worcester, Coventry and London have all proven unsustainable.

And that's before you even factor in the pitiful turnout for Anglo-Welsh fixtures in the Heineken Cup.

Sadly, it all seems like they're living in a fever dream. Thank Christ we got the Saffers on board before the English did....

That was a class try from Ulster. Beautifully weighted kick across the field and well finished.

Interesting that Munster top the defensive stats despite the injuries and rotten results in the last month. Shows that it's by no means a systemic crisis, and that there's a foundation there to build on.

Ulster's potent line-out maul surely a large factor in them topping the attacking stats.

The grá welsh fans have for the idea of an anglo-welsh league is divorced from reality, genuinely baffling. Why would Welsh punters be more interested in watching their teams be **** against English teams as opposed to Irish or SA ones?

I think a more dynamic proposal than a B&I league as mooted by Warburton would be to bring bring some of the better English teams into the URC. Organize it into smaller conferences. The love for promotion and relegation is so anachronistic. It's massively financially destabilizing and plays a large part in the need for rich owners splurging trying to win.

The only way that wales are getting into the Premiership is as part of a B&I league. The hedge fund shareholders will be sure of that.

Thanks. I'm an idiot - I completely forgot that we have two weeks of European rugby in Jan. Without that, the break seemed really long until the next round of fixtures, that's why I was wondering.

I thought we were two games shy of the halfway point (I mixed up Leinster winning 7 with having played 7) - but it's been 9, you're spot on. Forget I said anything!!

Yeah it's a sorry state indeed.

I don't think anybody would blame them for wanting to see their sides play English sides more often. You can't tell a Tipp hurling fan to not care about beating Cork. A Meath football fan to not care about beating Dublin. Etc. This one is purely emotion, politics, history, etc. Fair enough.

But how often would their fans keep turning out if their sides (as they currently are) were being routinely hockeyed by second-string English clubs?

I suppose it's theoretically possible that the WRU could keep maybe 2 sides competitive in the Premiership. If they got their act together, downsized, spread the players evenly, etc. Make teams with a meaningful identity (I've long argued the regions should be split on language (English vs Welsh), not geography).

But I don't think history offers hugely optimistic evidence that WRU can or would do this tbh.

And it all assumes the remaining English clubs would agree to chop up their TV revenues into thinner slices, given that the Welsh sides would surely bring little benefit in terms of increased TV or gate receipts?

Bottled the last kick to win....how are the sharks so shìt?!!...in a league with 4 muck welsh regions and zebre...the sharks are rock bottom!

The scrum battle between Nche and Ntlabakanye was pretty darn epic though tbf.

Wasn't this in play 2 years ago for munster?

Finished 6th but place was only confirmed when Glasgow got knocked out of the challenge cup.

Or am I misremembering?