Salary cap & Welsh exodus - A GREAT THING

Think about it:

a) Our best and most experienced players playing in France amongst some of Europe's best clubs and the best players France has to offer.
b) All our talented youngsters getting consistent regional experience and winning caps at a young age.

This is a recipe for success. Wales will have their best players playing in France and some good players playing in England. Before long there will be so many Welsh playing in the top 14 that they will be blocking potential future French talent and thus make the French national team weaker.

With the 4 regions, 14 French clubs and whatever other English clubs there are, that makes 18+ quality teams that the Welsh talent can be spread around.

If all the high rollers play in France then it means that the future stars currently in Wales will not be overpaid and will not have the attitude or off field issues that we have seen from other experienced squad members lately.

Ultimately if the current trend continues, the Welsh national side will get stronger and that national sides of countries like France could weaken.

The salary cap will take some time to adjust. There may not be as many big overseas signings (if any) in the future, but that will spur the Welsh regions to do even more to develop rugby at grassroots level. If Wales can produce the likes of Warburton, Lydiate, North and Cuthbert, then the regions do not need to buy the Tommy Bowe's or Casey Laulala's of this world.

In one respect, I sort of agree with you. However, where will these young players get their experience an advice from? Being an understudy to an accomplished international player is important during the development stages of a young player, and this is what will be lacking.

We will never have a stage where ALL our best players aren't playing in Wales and there will always be a period where they are performing well at international level, but still playing for their home region.

Example: For as long as the Scarlets can hold on to North or for as long as the Blues can hold onto Warburton, they must do as much as they can then to rub themselves off on the younger players.

It will be a constant movement that the regions will get used to.

How long do you think the French clubs can keep up these ridiculous wages? Are they making enough money from TV and merchandising that these multi millionaire owners are actually making a profit?

It would not surprise me if the owners of Stade and Toulon make a regular loss and just pump their cash into the clubs for the pure joy of owning it.

I agree that a migration of players away from Wales will allow more space for young players to make their mark in the Rabo12, but you have to ask whether more space was needed.

With four fairly strong regions, as well as a solid, established domestic league below them, there wasn't exactly shortage of opportunities for those youngsters who showed promise.

However, as with any situation where international players are not playing together on a regular basis, there will be a net cost to the fluidity of the international team. Why were the '08 Wales team so good? I'd argue that it's because so many of them played together for the Ospreys.

If you look at Scotland, the migration of some star players has allowed young, promising prospects to emerge (for example Weir, Harley, and Hogg replacing Parks, Brown, Stortoni respectively), but the core of the international side remained Glasgow and Edinburgh.

I don't agree that we do have 4 strong regions.

We haven't managed a team past the quarters since the Scarlets (a long time ago) and we only have 1 team in the knockouts now.

It will do our stars good to get the chance to play Heineken cup rugby at a more advanced stage. Momentum is what won the Grandslam for us in 2008. England had a diabolical 2nd half and the remarkable victory there spurred the players on to do great things.

Our current backline isn't really dominated by one club although the Scarlets representation is better than it has been for a while. I think if these players are good enough then Gatland will do a good enough job of brining them together in training sessions.

9. Bayonne
10. Scarlets
11. Scarlets
12. Blues
13. Scarlets
14. Blues
15. Blues

On the downside

The players who have gone to France are playing Amlin rugby not HC eg Hook and Mike Phillips.

We are likely to see more youngsters going over to the darkside and if they do that before getting capped by Wales then we could lose a number of good players to residency qualifications.

The lack of preparation time for internationals

etc etc

There are a whole host of reasons why it is bad. Granted it does free up some space but a balance needs to be kept.

its good for the national side....bad for the success of the regions as businesees in their own right

I totally agree. Look what happened for example in the short time that our best players were at the WorldCup. In those short few weeks, two of our 22 for Twickenham stepped up to a totally new level, namely Justin Tipuric and Alex Cuthbert. An exodus of the "cream" of Welsh rugby should not be seen as a disaster but an opportunity to expand our country's player base being exposed to top level rugby. Of course the downside is that this might turn our regions into academies for richer foreign clubs.

Its time for central contracts for the top 60 players identified by the WRU. The others should be aiming for a central contract and the regions need closer links with their club feeders. The ospreys espescially seem to have forgotten that there are actual rugby clubs in their regions.

If the top four players in each position were signed by the WRU and drafted into the regions and supplemented by players on regional contracts it would solve a whole host of issues.

Honestly we need our best players to stay in Wales if regional rugby is to survive.

It's not the only way to do it, obviously, but there are positives in this plan.

The best players go to England and France.

Let the superclubs go bankrupt.

Start from scratch with proper regions and a strong domestic league.

Couldn't be any worse and almost certain to produce 2 or 3 competitive teams for the HC, at long last.

England and France - the 5th Region.

Blues playing more at the CAP, Ospreys at the Brewery Field.

Nurture GC1404 get them into the Premiership at least and support London Welsh. If young squad players don't get regional games send them to North Wales or London for games.

Diversification without the costs of running extra regions. I think the under 20 internationals should be expected to play week in week out at regional, premiership or at the two sides mentioned.

I have mentioned this on other threads, what we do not want to see is a mass exodus like we saw in the late eighties/early nineties where a whole generation was lost to rugby league, at least this time our national team would not be devastated. For me, as long as they do not go chasing the coin at an early age, we should be alright, for instance, for every Adam Jones, there is a Craig Mitchell, for every Leigh Byrne there is a Leigh Halfpenny, for every Gethin Jenkings there is a Rhys Gill, and so on. As long as rugby union stays professional in Wales we will produce the players, but what we do not want is substandard or players who are too young and wet behind the ears taking up the place of the more gifted players leaving, I do not want to see a scenario where we all think our players are world beaters when playing each other and then getting found out when they play a team outside of Wales. What we need is a reward system from the WRU to pay the regions for every player they produce for Wales, weather that be central contracts or bigger hand outs per players produced. I am not as worried as I was back in the dark day's, when rugby league were taking our best players, but I would like us to keep our best players for the sake of our regions, I am still forever the optimist that one day we will have highly successful regions with big crowds, but there is still a lot of work to be done. It will only take one region to get it right, then the rest will follow, just out of the fact of the bragging rights.

Good in a way that yes it does free up spaces, bad in a way that the youngsters then coming through have no one to look up to for experience etc.

Also incredibly bad for the regions to lose their star Welsh players who are a massive draw for home crowds, which are already struggling. The more players we lose will have a knock on affect on the regions at a time they are already struggling. No regions = no chance for young Welsh talent = relying on those that have gone abroad = a poor Wales team.

Tis all about balance. Yes it's okay if a few move (like when it was just Byrne, Hook and Phillips) it's not good when more and more are going.

Similar to LD I posted about this on the Jenkins thread.

For me, fron a National view point it works two ways, both are good ways IMO.

1st - They are going to France where it seems there is more co-operation on player release so it won't be such an issue for the national coach.

2nd - It does allow the youngsters to come through or for maybe players like Gill to come back to Wales and have a crack with the Regions.

It might cause problems for the Regions in that they might not be competitive at the top level if they are always only developing youngsters.

Just remember this:

"The King is dead, long live the King"

Nobody is irreplaceable.

Why should our regions put a disproportionate amount of income into the hands of players who spend a big chunk of the season with Wales?

Seeing our seasoned internationals seeking to boost their pensions abroad paradoxically means we don't need to feather the beds of SH journeymen. For me that's a win-win.

Firstly I'm not sure whether France league is stronger, certainly the Irish teams are better in Europe.

Secondly in France they have far more games so players will be hurt more and not protected. Adam Jones for example has played 8 games for the Ospreys and his Wales games this season. A Welsh international playing in Wales will probably only play 20-22 games a season. Players in France will play a hell of a lot more.

I think it's good that players are leaving though because it does create spaces for young players, and we haven't really lost anyone young and important... yet.

Gethin Jenkins has been around a long time and at his age the chance of a new experience and fresh start is a good thing. I would be very worried if we started losing the liked of Scott Williams, George North and the like though. I'd prefer not see to any Welsh player leaving until they have been in the Wales squad a good few years and are firmly established in Welsh rugby.

Any played going to England has pretty much closed the door on their international career to be honest. Even Craig Mitchell will probably be out of the Welsh squad next season as Jo Rees establishes himself at the Ospreys.

Plus they get far better coaching abroad instead of some welsh mupett like Holley, Humphreys or Dai Bando coaching them

A muppet is not recognised in his own land.

I think is is a good to flood France with our experience players at this time in the RWC calander, they get 3 years and get back 1 year before the RWC as with some SH players. I always believed we should have more teams in Wales so our talent get games but the players going to France makes space and increases our player base. I think this is win win. I also agree our players get expedience of different coaching as we know our coaches in the regions are iffy.

I think a lot of posters are guilty of wishful thinking. Just cause they go to france doesnt mean they will be certain starters, some may actually spend a lot more time on the bench !

If they are on the bench they will prob return and accept realistic wages as rugby in Wales cannot support the daft wages for the general lack of interest.

Personally I don't find the exodus (if you choose to call it that, currently only 3 of the starting XV are or will be based outside Wales) to be as serious as the Welsh media are making it out to be. I think it's best to retain as many as possible of course and on a moral level I am disappointed in those who have not been able to resist the money pull, especially those who put forward originally that they were eager to stay (Charteris, Jenkins...). The greatest inconvenience is how this sets back Gatland's interior policy but of those who have gone I don't believe any are irreplaceable.

I'd only really start to worry if the WRU showed signs of creaking over regionalism, in other words if reinstating the clubs became a popular option. I think there's a big possibility that the national side's growing success and strength in depth is down ultimately to regionalisation, upping the competition within greater player pools than the town clubs could ever provide. Abolish the regions and we might just find ourselves in a backwards transition to another 90's style lapse.

This is of course despite the fact that the regions themselves aren't doing very well at all, which is a different issue. The fact is I believe that they've had a positive impact on the national side.