Scarlets are top Dog in Wales

The ever changing nature of modern professional rugby has seen the regions switch from being teams of a budget that could afford top International NWQs and plenty of Seasoned Welsh Talent too. Things have changed, and where maybe the Dragons had always felt that pinch and the Warriors bit the dust from it, the Scarlets were the next.

They invested in themselves. Last year they started to see that fruition. The following 21 players all signed regional contracts with the Scarlets last year. Now they are the Regional model the other sides are following.

Aaron Shingler

Ben Morgan

Damian Welch

Dan Newton

Emyr Phillips

Morgan Stoddart

Peter Edwards

Phil John

Dale Ford (development contract)

Gareth Maule

Johnathan Edwards

Kirby Myhill (development contract)

Scott Williams

Rob McCusker

Tavis Knoyle

Aled Davies

George North

Jordan Williams (development contract)

Josh Turnbull

Rhodri Jones (development contract)

Rhys Priestland

ScrumV reported that it looks likely Morgan will opt for England, shame if he does but you can't blame him he is English after all.

Would have been great competition for Toby.

I thought Murphy had a good game for Scarlets. Looking forward to seeing more of him. Just have to wait and see with Morgan.

The point of the thread being the determination of the Scarlets set up to make this work for them is impressive, and we can all see the improvements year on year over the last 4 seasons.

I expect the Ospreys and Blues to follow suit more and more.

Some people in the media laughed at us last season for announcing all of our re-signings after the 6 Nations last year, but for me I couldn't have been happier. We were showing a commitment to our future, by holding on to our best young players, and sticking by our academy system.

With money so short it was what needed to be done, and with the amount of players coming through the competition for places is increasing. The depth in our squad now compared to even just 2 seasons ago is incredible.

We are by no means the finished article, we still aren't quite a top top side but we are getting there, building slowly sure, but in a sustainable way this time.

It's great, as a supporter, to be able to go and watch your side play and see it full of young and local players, just helps create a great vibe. NWQ players like Monty are brilliant to have (even though he's leaving us ) but you can't beat seeing your young local stars play for your team.

Scarlets still are in for a rough ride, we've got to try and secure Foxy with a new contract this season, and money is still incredibly tight, but I have confidence that we can do it now

In all honesty I think all four Regions are now starting to bring through youth, the Dragons and Scarlets may be a little bit ahead due to financial restrictions over the years.

Ospreys are now bringing through some of the talent they have had due to players moving on.

Not seen much of Blues this season but there is the likes of Cuthbert and Williams spring to mind straight away.

Blues are likely to have a clear out similar to the Ospreys at the end of the season apparently...!

They've got about 20 players out of contract don't they?

I support all four regions with equal measure but if I had to spend my hard earned cash on a season ticket for one of the regions then at the present time my choice would be the Scarlets.
If and when we get a region in North Wales I would hope it's run in the style of the Scarlets on and off the field.

If you'd said that a couple of seasons ago about the Scarlets Cymro (the running of things on and off the field), I think most people would have looked at you like you were crazy!

Really goes to show how much we've managed to turn things around over the last few seasons. Lots of hard work still to go though!

Cymroglan:

If and when there is a region in North Wales I would not want to model the Scarlets on how to run a business or your region would not last very long. The Scarlets play very attractive rugby and they currently have a lot of talent so I go along with you regarding the style of play.

Maybe a new region can learn from the other regions to have a sustainable business, with a good youth and experience balance, with ambition, no imports and not an army of hang on players acting as coaches and secretaries etc driving up overheads/costs.

As painful as it is to say (as an Os supporter) what's going down at the Scarlets is great and what Welsh rugby needs. I see all the regions going through something like this - the Ospreys now and the Blues in a year or so.

maestegmafia wrote:Blues are likely to have a clear out similar to the Ospreys at the end of the season apparently...!

Good to hear, I feel there's a lot of deadwood down there - let Parks, Rush, Tito, Monatika, Filise go and let some of the young welsh boys have a crack - Young, Navidi, Cook...

I don't really accept the Scarlets are the top region in Wales based on one draw at the Liberty and a narrow defeat to a Ospreys side who had an off day in every part of their game.

I think the gap may have closed with Mike Phillips, James Hook, Lee Bryne, Marty Holah, Jerry Collins, and Craig Mitchell all leaving the Ospreys, it has taken some of the squads depth away. then again we beat Munster with 19 players missing , during the Australia game, so depth isn't too bad!

I still expect the Ospreys to finish higher in the table than all the other Welsh regions because whilst many fans from other regions love the fact the Ospreys haven't scored any bonus points, it's also worth noting we have had a far harder start to the season than most of the other teams.
11 games is the half way point, we have played 12, of those 12, 6 were against Irish Provinces, all of these were wins with Munster and Connacht being beaten Home and away, and Ulster and Leinster being beaten at home. We played the Scarlets twice and the Blues, as well as beating Edinburgh home, and Treviso away.

Bear in mind Treviso have beaten Ulster away, and beaten the Scarlets and stuffed the Dragons at home.

To put it another way, we have 10 games left, Aironi are beatable home and away, Treviso are beatable at home, Glasgow are very beatable at home, as are the Dragons are home.

The away games at ulster and Leinster will clearly be too much for us, but away to Edinburgh, Blues and the Dragons are not totally impossible to win.

The Blues and Scarlets are far too inconsistent to be considered for the top spot of Welsh regions I'm my opinion.

Alyn to be honest you can't argue that head to head the Scarlets are the best of the regions. So far this season we have played the Blues at the CCS (LV=) and won 30 - 3, we have played the Ospreys home and away (Rabo12) and drew 9 - 9, and won 22- 14. And we have also played the Dragons home and away (Rabo12) and won both 22 - 12, and 10 - 6.

Top Dog ? Maybe. Unfortunately since the WC its been top dog of a pack of Chiwawa's !! Nothing in our regions to get excited about.

offload wrote: Nothing in our regions to get excited about.

Speak for yourself. I'm excited about some of the youngsters at the Scarlets.

Fair enough Chunky - some promising youngsters about, but the standard of rugby lately has been very poor. I will admit that I enjoyed your win over Northampton though.

Standard of rugby is because of the fixture list and Wales playing a silly friendly.

Not the regions fault. admittedly the Dragons were atrocious on Friday though.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Alyn to be honest you can't argue that head to head the Scarlets are the best of the regions. So far this season we have played the Blues at the CCS (LV=) and won 30 - 3, we have played the Ospreys home and away (Rabo12) and drew 9 - 9, and won 22- 14. And we have also played the Dragons home and away (Rabo12) and won both 22 - 12, and 10 - 6.

You can't really count the LV Cup because no one plays their first team, it's a glorified academy competition.
I'm not even sure you can gauge to much from Welsh head to heads, because Welsh teams expect to win their home games, it's pretty worthless drawing away with the Ospreys, if your then going to lose away at Connacht, at home to Leinster, away at Treviso, at home to Munster, which is something the Scarlets have managed to do.

Any serious side looking to win the Rabodirect needs to beat the likes of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster at home, and beat teams like Treviso and Connacht away, you have to take the points because you have to assume Leinster, Ulster and Munster will take the points too. That's why the Scarlets find themselves 14 points off Leinster in the league at the half way point.

Yeah but we do have a won 4 out of 5 derby matches (and one draw) bragging rights. So na na nana na!!!

Being serious though there is not really too much difference between any of the regions (at full strength) at the moment.

What's even better SS is that the O's haven't beaten us since 2010, that's a whole TWO years ago now

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Yeah but we do have a won 4 out of 5 derby matches (and one draw) bragging rights. So na na nana na!!!
Being serious though there is not really too much difference between any of the regions (at full strength) at the moment.

Fair enough, though we have only played 3 derbies but also have 6 wins out of 6 against Irish provinces, from a league table I'd rather have the Irish points in the bag, and home and away games against the Dragons to come

rugbydreamer wrote:What's even better SS is that the O's haven't beaten us since 2010, that's a whole TWO years ago now

Quite, right it's clear the Ospreys need a couple of backline players, using cuddy's money we will go and buy...
mmmm... *rubs hands together*

George North and Rhys Priestland!

15 Rhys Priestland
14 George North
13 Andrew Bishop
12 Ashley Beck
11 Shane Williams
10 Matthew Morgan
9 Rhys Webb

Thanks hun we owe you one, well 4 actually, Bryne, Phillips, North and Priestland

You forget Barry Davies too was actually really upset when he scored against us. Got some great memories of him in a Scarlet shirt.

And trust me, there's no chance of Rhys P or the North signing for the O's, they're Scarlets bois, through and through.

Alyn. I like some posters on SF that have " I was there Oct 14th 2007. O's 9 Scarlets 14". At least they can update it now. Bless!

No. Not yet.

Breadvan wrote: Alyn. I like some posters on SF that have " I was there Oct 14th 2007. O's 9 Scarlets 14". At least they can update it now. Bless!

Haha, I don;t like to mess around with Scarlets fans too much, though Scarlet Fever is a nice forum. I got Sospaned and Popheth'd to death for three hours the last time they came to the Liberty stadium.



That's Smelly Mike, and Baz and the rest of the Hard Core Scarlets nutters, my brother in laws and me are the depressed looking guys in the top left!
Next time that lot come to the Liberty I'm not arriving till dead on kick off, so I don't have to listen to them singing in the Harvester, and I'm sitting behind the goal posts by myself, with a packed or Co-codamol tablets!

rugbydreamer wrote:You forget Barry Davies too was actually really upset when he scored against us. Got some great memories of him in a Scarlet shirt.

And trust me, there's no chance of Rhys P or the North signing for the O's, they're Scarlets bois, through and through.

Barrie Davies is a fringe player.
North can come to the Dark side, he can be persuaded....

Barry Davies was your best player against the Scarlets, if the O's had any sense, he'd be much more than a fringe player! (injuries allowing)

rugbydreamer wrote:Barry Davies was your best player against the Scarlets, if the O's had any sense, he'd be much more than a fringe player! (injuries allowing)

Funny I'd of thought you'd of given Kahn Fotuali'i and Dan Biggar as our 2 best players against you!

Barry Had a good game. Certainly does what Fussell can't.

Scarlets top region? Quite possibly. I'd give them the edge on the Ospreys and the Blues. Right now Llanhilleth are better than the Dragons!!!
I've been very critical of the approach that the Blues and Ospreys have taken and I was delighted to see the likes of Collins, Holah and Nutbrown leave. I wasn't too impressed with the Samoans that came in though. They're not too quality, so id rather see the Ospreys pick Welsh talent eg Webb.
The Blues are desperate for a clear out. Rush, Tito, Parks, Filise please leave. Oh I nearly forgot Molitika!!! Is he just hanging around for his free bus pass???
In a way. I kind of think that the fact that the Dragons and Scarlets Being skint has really helped the Welsh cause. Would Faletau, Scott Williams, Lydiate and North have come through as quickly if they were at the Ospreys or Blues? No.
I don't want to preach and say how great the Scarlets and Dragons are for regularly fielding at least 90% Welsh players. If they could to pay big money, no doubt they would, but it's definitely helped the Welsh team.
My last point on the Scarlets is, how impressive their team spirit is. It's something the Dragons have had to have, but the Scarlets are clearly a united team and that counts for so much.

mog,

We seem to have lost a lot of thing at moment including spirit, somethings wrong and speaking to others with lot more knowledge on the day to day things tham me nobody seems to know what it is.

Is it just a bad spell or something deeper?

I think it's a bad spell, bedford. Confidence perhaps is an issue. You guys are so close to putting in a really good performance but not just quite getting there. Get a couple of wins and it'll pick up, but without the spirit to pull you through, how do you get the wins?

Tis a tough situation to be in. Not really sure what can be done.

Can't put my finger on it. We are definitely struggling in the front 5. I like Sid and Adam Jones. But they're both in their 30's and we're relying on them playing the full 80. Wayne Evans is out of sorts and Tovey is hit and miss. On paper, our back-line looks very good, but they just can't get going. We are just shipping on bad ball and nobody seems to be cutting any angles. We seem to have a policy to just play rugby from anywhere. We very rarely look to get field position. We over complicate things and look to offload when going to ground would be a better decision.
Saying all that. We are not a bad team. We just need a slice of luck. We're a team low on confidence that are becoming an easy team to defeat. We make life easy for the opposition.

Think you might have hit the nail on the head there commenting on Evans and Tovey.

You forwards might not be great but they are still winning you ball, but your 9 and 10 aren't functioning properly. Is there another 9 you can start with taht can really push Evans and challange for a spot? Improve the quality etc? And apart from Steffan Jones, ahve you anyone else challanging at 10?

Perhaps (and a big perhaps) complacency has set in a bit with those two.

Back in the summer I commented on how this was a season for Jason Tovey to really push on and stake a claim for the Welsh jersey. He's had a few good performances, but it's largely been disappointing. Tovey would be a great 10 behind a pack that was giving him an armchair ride, but he doesn't get that luxury with our pack. Defensively he's poor and you'd have thought that he'd be doing work on his weaknesses (against Exeter Tovey put in and up and under, chased his own kick, allowed the opposition player to take the ball and Tovey didnt put a hand on him). There will be 10 year olds who'd have been shouted at for showing such little bravery. If this part of his game doesn't improve, he'll never make it. He can be a genius, but he's got to become more consistent.
At 9 we have Johnny Evans coming back. He's a very promising player and we've missed him. Joe Bedford is awful.

I really dont think fly halves settle down until their 26 or so, they tend to be inconsistent until then, tovey, biggar and all the others are still kids. They will be hit and miss for several years yet.