A discussion based on the possibility of the Dragons being an official development region

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I hate to think about it but if Gwent Dragons are forced into becoming an official development region, how do you think it would work? This isn't a discussion about whether it will or won't happen, but more about how it could best operate for Welsh rugby.

We've often been branded an unofficial development region, the Welsh Connacht, etc. but the recent announcement by the WRU that they're considering different funding models for each region, coupled with the high number of our best players leaving, has led me to the conclusion that it is more likely than ever that we could go down this road. For me, I don't think going down to 3 teams is viable. 4 teams seems about right to spread the talent of an interntational squad and also to allow gaps for new talent to come through. 3 teams would mean even more talent leaving Wales, or even more warming the bench. 5 teams would cost too much, or would lead to the cake being split 5 ways instead of 4, which would leave even less money to retain the top players.

So, I could see a situation where the WRU concentrates resources in the top 3 sides (Blues, Scarlets and Ospreys) so that they firstly have more money to retain the top welsh talent, and secondly so that you would probably have the interntaional players gravitating to the top 3 teams which would make them more competitive in Europe, thus leading to better attendances at their games, etc., etc. I guess you could think of it as being same as we have now but with Tovey, Charteris, Brew, Lydiate, Burns and Faletau running out for one of the other regions in the HC.

Would there then be some sort of system in place where players were 'sent' to the Dragons for game time/development? Would this need central contracts to happen? Perhaps from the academies the next step is to go to the Dragons for experience and game time in the Pro 12 and the less intense Amlin Cup, sort of like a stepping stone to pro rugby. The ones that stick there hand up as quality players with the Dragons are then farmed out to whichever of the other 3 regions needs their services.

Or, could we see a situation where the Dragons are given one last shot? 2 years to prove your worth or we open up to proposals for a new region, with tenders from the valleys an/or north wales?

I'm pretty sure that something is going to change. If playing in the Heineken Cup is deemed the be all and end all for international players, or those with aspirations for it, then playing for the Dragons is not even going to be on the radar of the top Welsh players. They'll avoid us like the plague. We're hearing that Tovey has been told by the WRU he needs to be playing HC rugby, for example. From a Welsh rugby perspective could it therefore be beneficial to have an 'interim' team where the up and coming players cut their teeth and get to put themselves in the shop window for the 'big 3' regions? It would be painful for me as a fan, and I know it would severely harm attendances (not sure I'd renew my season ticket if it happened), but on the other hand it would be great to see a lot of young talent running out at RP. We could then claim to have a hand in the development of all future stars (and we won't let the other regions forget it I'm sure!)!

So, what do people think? Would this be a good move by the WRU or completely pants?

Gavin - The proposal of the super club is not concrete but it is floating about, I think it would be difficult to make that work within the current set up.

What I don't understand with all this is why the WRU would need to cut funding to the Dragons and change the Dragons' status (which would be a huge backward step in terms of truly 'regional' rugby in Wales). Cutting our funding would be an undeserved kick in the teeth as it is, but couldn't they just leave it at that?

if they changed to Newport Dragons, and stopped even trying regionalisation, it would be a big step backwards.
Cardiff Blues arn't really a region, just Cardiff RFC rebranded
Scarlets are rebranded Llaneli
And Newport Dragons would be just Newport

3 of the 4 so called regions covered by superclubs, it'd never work

totally agree, back to the basic in terms of strategy for me, drop newport from the name gwent dragons or dragons is fine, a season structured around all the clibs in gwent lv and rabbo games played at pandy park pontypool park and eugene cross having a portion of the games as well as rodney parade

Once again, I'm stunned by the brilliance and mind blowing competence of the WRU. We all have amateur old farts running our unions. But the Welsh ones in particular are a credit to the nation.

Remember nothing has been decided yet, and all this has been blown up because Roger Lewis said discussions had taken place over the funding for the future, that's all he really said.

I don't think anyone should really panic because no kind of plan or idea has been put forward. Every year the regions scream out for more money, the WRU sign a loyalty agreement then one of the 2 sides back tracks and it all starts over again.

Blues and Dragons to merge into the 'Blue Dragons' to represent the whole of South East Wales.

I'm off....

doctornickolas wrote:Blues and Dragons to merge into the 'Blue Dragons' to represent the whole of South East Wales.

I'm off....

I said that already... make 3 new regions, with centrally contracted WELSH players and rotate the home ground, so East Wales would play at Rodney Parade, Cardiff and Sardis road. Ideally you could piggy back these games with Welsh premiership games afterwards so it can double promote both teams to local fans.

AlynDavies wrote:I said that already... make 3 new regions, with centrally contracted WELSH players and rotate the home ground, so East Wales would play at Rodney Parade, Cardiff and Sardis road. Ideally you could piggy back these games with Welsh premiership games afterwards so it can double promote both teams to local fans.

This is a good idea if money in Wales is that tight. Would a team called Blue Dragons be able to play in the Arms Park though as the team has to be called Cardiff and play in blue according to all the Cardiff supporters I know

Jimmy Moz wrote:

AlynDavies wrote:I said that already... make 3 new regions, with centrally contracted WELSH players and rotate the home ground, so East Wales would play at Rodney Parade, Cardiff and Sardis road. Ideally you could piggy back these games with Welsh premiership games afterwards so it can double promote both teams to local fans.

This is a good idea if money in Wales is that tight. Would a team called Blue Dragons be able to play in the Arms Park though as the team has to be called Cardiff and play in blue according to all the Cardiff supporters I know

I would totally dis associate them from the regions entirely, no Blue, Dragons, Gwent, Ospreys or any names like that, just West, East and North Wales.

AlynDavies wrote:I would totally dis associate them from the regions entirely, no Blue, Dragons, Gwent, Ospreys or any names like that, just West, East and North Wales.

Why not call them by their Welsh names? North is 'Gogledd'. East is 'Dwyrain' and West is 'Gorllewin' or something like that. Its also keeping real heritage. Far better than something totally non Welsh like an Osprey

Dwyrain Donkeys.... Hmmm suits them perfectly doesnt it!

tbf id be more open to supporting three regions based on east west and north,. however its not going to happen, what im not going to support is the dragons as a dev region and the other three continuing....esp after they have overspent in recent years and are only now trying to balance their books

GavinDragon wrote:tbf id be more open to supporting three regions based on east west and north,. however its not going to happen, what im not going to support is the dragons as a dev region and the other three continuing....esp after they have overspent in recent years and are only now trying to balance their books

Well said. Maybe we should have followed their lead and spent money we didn't have too.

I have said before and on the thread ( I think) years back we use to have East v West v Gwent games etc.

That should have been the starting point when we went Regional but the clubs and WRU wanted to keep the 'historical' club names which is why wer are where we are today.

bedfordwelsh wrote:I have said before and on the thread ( I think) years back we use to have East v West v Gwent games etc.

That should have been the starting point when we went Regional but the clubs and WRU wanted to keep the 'historical' club names which is why wer are where we are today.

Why you are where you are today is because South Wales is in itself a 'region' but someone took a butcher's knife and divided one region into 4 'regions'.

Now when I've said similar things in the past I usually get the history lesson on how alien a concept regions are to the Welsh who grew up with clubs. Well yes, but that still doesn't explain why 'regionalism' was experimented with in the first place if it was only a watered down pretense. What possible point was served by having 4 'regions' grouped so tightly together in one - region? It seems to me it was always only a smoke screen for the continuation of club sensiblities in the south of the nation. I'd feel clautrophobic if all the Rubgy 'Provinces' were collected in one fine line down the east coast of Ireland.

I thought the Welsh (meaning all of them) adored rugby? But on evidence it's a strictly Southern Welsh game? Correct me (again) if I'm wrong but looking from the outside in it seems a weird way of introducing the concept of regionalism or indeed taking 'regional' rugby to the four corners of the nation

Well SecretFly, it was an Ozzie who came up with the concept and then did a runner after it was implemented. I think he had one too many Fosters when he was designing his plan!

Correction, a New Zealander turned Ozzie! Strewth!

Griff wrote:Well SecretFly, it was an Ozzie who came up with the concept and then did a runner after it was implemented. I think he had one too many Fosters when he was designing his plan!

But this is not the plan he designed so I don't blame him at all. I blame the clubs. Moffett said 3 in the South and 1 in the North covering the whole of Wales geographically. It was allowing the clubs to bully the union that caused this mess. The clubs had messed it up for years a clubs and then we let them run the regions, same people in charge, crazy.

I think the reason the clubs were allowed to bully the WRU is coz the WRU didn't have the money to implement the change fully and so needed the owners of the clubs to help out - of course they only agreed if they could push their own agendas and as such North Wales (who didn't have any rich owners pushing their agenda) got rapidly pushed off the map and then it was a battle royal between the big clubs in South Wales to carve up the pie - with the WRU trying to balance everything and (as usual) ballsing it up

Even before the Moff appeared, we also had the opportunity to join up with the English to create an Anglo-Welsh league.
Didn't the WRU balls that up too?

Dave - apparently they wanted 6 Welsh sides (I think it was that), the English only wanted 4, we couldn't reach a compramise/deal so it was all called off.

Lo and behold, a few years later we come across regionalisation and would you look at that, we end up with 4 teams.

Talk about short sightedness

Jimmy Moz wrote:

AlynDavies wrote:I would totally dis associate them from the regions entirely, no Blue, Dragons, Gwent, Ospreys or any names like that, just West, East and North Wales.

Why not call them by their Welsh names? North is 'Gogledd'. East is 'Dwyrain' and West is 'Gorllewin' or something like that. Its also keeping real heritage. Far better than something totally non Welsh like an Osprey

I like the idea, but I think if you are struggling to get the fans to chant the right names now, what hope have you got of convincing the english speaking folk (from all the regions) to try and chant in a language they can't talk in? The amount of dullards who pronounce Llanelli wrong in Pembrokeshire alone is worrying, let alone trying to say 'Y Gweilch' or 'Gleision' (apologies if I can't spell). Introducing new words to their vocab may be harder than managing to cure world hunger.

rugbydreamer wrote:Dave - apparently they wanted 6 Welsh sides (I think it was that), the English only wanted 4, we couldn't reach a compramise/deal so it was all called off.

Lo and behold, a few years later we come across regionalisation and would you look at that, we end up with 4 teams.

Talk about short sightedness

Quality and you could argue we basically have the same 4 teams now, but dressed up in different costumes.
Is it fair to blame the WRU though because there would have been civil war if 4 had left to join up with the English. Those clubs who missed out would have kicked up an almighty stink wouldn't they?

Cardiff Dave wrote:

rugbydreamer wrote:Dave - apparently they wanted 6 Welsh sides (I think it was that), the English only wanted 4, we couldn't reach a compramise/deal so it was all called off.

Lo and behold, a few years later we come across regionalisation and would you look at that, we end up with 4 teams.

Talk about short sightedness

Quality and you could argue we basically have the same 4 teams now, but dressed up in different costumes.
Is it fair to blame the WRU though because there would have been civil war if 4 had left to join up with the English. Those clubs who missed out would have kicked up an almighty stink wouldn't they?

There wasn't cival war when two sides upped and left trying to join the English, the rest of us just carried on regardless.

Well at the time I think the top 4 teams in Wales were Newport, Cardiff, Swansea and Llanelli, so yeah pretty much the same four areas.

Well yes there would have been a stink but what we could have had was seperate relegation for the Welsh and English sides (depending who was in the relegation zone), so say if Swansea one season were in one of the bottom two relegation zones, they'd have dropped down and say Ponty could have been promoted from the Welsh Premiership.

That's how I would have seen it working anyways.

Thing is we have our 4 regions now, and I really think the WRU need to hold on to all 4. What I would like to see in funding is that regions should be rewarded for the amount of internationals they produce. That way the Dragons could have gotten more money for the likes of Charteris, Brew etc which could have given them more of a chance of holding on to them.

So the more internationals = more money for that particular region. Would certainly focus the academies more and get all 4 regions producing talent. If a region then got less money then tough, they should work harder at producing talent.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

rugbydreamer wrote:Dave - apparently they wanted 6 Welsh sides (I think it was that), the English only wanted 4, we couldn't reach a compramise/deal so it was all called off.

Lo and behold, a few years later we come across regionalisation and would you look at that, we end up with 4 teams.

Talk about short sightedness

Quality and you could argue we basically have the same 4 teams now, but dressed up in different costumes.
Is it fair to blame the WRU though because there would have been civil war if 4 had left to join up with the English. Those clubs who missed out would have kicked up an almighty stink wouldn't they?

There wasn't cival war when two sides upped and left trying to join the English, the rest of us just carried on regardless.

Oh aye. Forgot about that although it didn't happen with the WRU's blessing. If 4 had left with their blessing it could have been different I suppose. Anyway we'll never know.

rugbydreamer wrote:Well at the time I think the top 4 teams in Wales were Newport, Cardiff, Swansea and Llanelli, so yeah pretty much the same four areas.

Well yes there would have been a stink but what we could have had was seperate relegation for the Welsh and English sides (depending who was in the relegation zone), so say if Swansea one season were in one of the bottom two relegation zones, they'd have dropped down and say Ponty could have been promoted from the Welsh Premiership.

That's how I would have seen it working anyways.

Thing is we have our 4 regions now, and I really think the WRU need to hold on to all 4. What I would like to see in funding is that regions should be rewarded for the amount of internationals they produce. That way the Dragons could have gotten more money for the likes of Charteris, Brew etc which could have given them more of a chance of holding on to them.

So the more internationals = more money for that particular region. Would certainly focus the academies more and get all 4 regions producing talent. If a region then got less money then tough, they should work harder at producing talent.

Produce or employ?

That's the key, Dave. Otherwise the Blues would get the financial reward for the Dragons' development of Jason Tovey, for example.

Will there ever really even be any change though with the current superclubs?

Cardiff (or Blues if it pacifies you) will never embrace anything outside of the capital

Llanelli (or Scarlets if it pacifies you) will never give up their territory in West Wales

Ospreys will just carry on as they are

Newport (or Gwent Dragons if it pacifies you) will stay the same even if they do become a development "region"

Can anyone really see anything being different 5 years from now?

Jimmy Moz wrote:Will there ever really even be any change though with the current superclubs?

Cardiff (or Blues if it pacifies you) will never embrace anything outside of the capital

Llanelli (or Scarlets if it pacifies you) will never give up their territory in West Wales

Ospreys will just carry on as they are

Newport (or Gwent Dragons if it pacifies you) will stay the same even if they do become a development "region"

Can anyone really see anything being different 5 years from now?

So Moz let me get this straight you say that all the regions will stay the same - ie the Scarlets will look after their region - West Wales
The Ospreys will look after their region - Swansea, Neath and newly Bridgend (and everything in between)
The Dragons will look after their region - Gwent, Blaenau Gwent and Monmouthshire
and the Blues well...
But not sure what your problem is, they're all embracing their regions and obviously won't target anything outside of their region as it's not in their remit - when North Wales was in the Scarlets region, they did target it, and the Ospreys didn't do too much in Bridgend until it was in their region and now their doing lots of good work.

Same as you I can't see anything changing in 5 years as I can't see the WRU changing the regional set up

Produce and employ I guess.

I mean if you produce a player and they end up playing for your team, you're also employing them, right?

it would have to be both.

The region themselves have to develop an environment where the player wants to stay and won't go looking elsewhere. Also if the WRU would fund the teams for the international players they have, it would make it easier for the region to hold on to them (so the likes of Tovey won't jump region), so you wouldn't have the issue of paying whatever region for producing them. They would just stay at their region.

I think it would still happen though that a player is developed at one region and goes on to get international honours at another (case in point see Phillips and Byrne, they came through the Scarlets system then moved regions before they got their call ups, or v soon after their first call up anyways). It is something that is going to happen, just hopefully not too often.

I remember an interview with Jinks who was with Ponty at the time and they were one of the sides down do be in a second division.

Jinks said he was happy wit that becasue he believed Ponty were strong enough to win promotion and get promoted after one season.

The one problem I see with the WRU paying regions for the amount of internationals is that back a few seasons ago the Ospreys were buying up welsh youngsters and internationals left right and centre (R Jones, Byrne ect) because they had the most money than other regions - they probably would have been able to do this regardless of the other regions getting money off the WRU, but the Ospreys would have had much more money from the WRU than the other regions (as they had 13 of the 15 first team players, and a fair number of the squad). And with this increased money it may have encouraged them to buy more Welsh ints of youngsters from the other regions (like they may have seen Priestland struggling to get game time behind Jones and decided to put an offer in using the increased money from the WRU - or Warbs at the Blues who was behind Williams)

Yes but with the salary cap in place Priest, no region should actually be able to just buy up anyone anymore, even if they get subsidised by the WRU for the internationals they do have. They'll still have to pay the bulk of the salary themselves.

I think the salary cap should ensure that no massive offers could be put in to lure too many players away from a rival region.

And I do think some sort of compensation is going to be needed to keep the internationals in Wales.

It's a very difficult situation to find the right balance in really.

rugbydreamer wrote:Produce and employ I guess.

I mean if you produce a player and they end up playing for your team, you're also employing them, right?

it would have to be both.

The region themselves have to develop an environment where the player wants to stay and won't go looking elsewhere. Also if the WRU would fund the teams for the international players they have, it would make it easier for the region to hold on to them (so the likes of Tovey won't jump region), so you wouldn't have the issue of paying whatever region for producing them. They would just stay at their region.

I think it would still happen though that a player is developed at one region and goes on to get international honours at another (case in point see Phillips and Byrne, they came through the Scarlets system then moved regions before they got their call ups, or v soon after their first call up anyways). It is something that is going to happen, just hopefully not too often.

Yes, sort of and you beat me to it.
There should be some kind of reward for the teams that produce and nurture talent, but also seperate compensation for the teams/regions that happen to pay their massive wages while they are on team Wales duty (which is what we have now) regardless of whether they developed them or not.
How the former could be worked out i've no idea because whose to say when a player is developed or not? If they switch during their development years, which they do, two teams/regions could claim part development if that player eventually makes the grade.

Well a player can't move until they've finished school now though can they? (tis why Sam Davies, Nigel's son, is still part of the O's academy even though he's 18 - he can't move to the Scarlets yet).

So do you take the development as pre-18? Or when they full on join a regions academy after their school education has finished?

There would have to be very clear criteria set out for it to be feasable to implement.

yup the criteria would def need to be at least as clear as the international eligebility rules

Well sure, there's nothing confusing about them after all......

luckless_pedestrian wrote:That's the key, Dave. Otherwise the Blues would get the financial reward for the Dragons' development of Jason Tovey, for example.

As i've said, I agree there should be some kind of financial reward for development, but also compo for those employers who allow their well paid employees a lot of time off to represent team Wales.