Rugby attendances in Wales - a reasonable debate

First topic message reminder :

Ok, after reading the Ospreys V Northampton match thread, I think a few things need to be explained, I am fed up of hearing that rugby is being killed by Cardiff and Swansea football clubs, these thoughts are usually from ill educated masses who now nothing of the culture that rugby has in Wales, they just see full stadiums for the only TWO professional football clubs in Wales and make their own minds up, and this is the fact that we need to get across.

Firstly, yes Cardiff F.C and Swansea F.C do have massive following's in and around their areas, but what people really need to think about is this, Swansea are west Wales and Cardiff are east Wales, in these two parts of Wales, they compete with nobody, they are the two stand alone entities that people from as far west as Pembroke dock, and as far east as Monmouth go to watch these two clubs. They compete with no one in the Welsh world of football, the only competition they have, is from Liverpool, Manchester, Arsenal and even those fans will go and watch the two Welsh clubs more often than not.

Now, secondly, if we divide the east and west if Wales up, you get FOUR professional rugby teams, people from Cardiff and the surrounding areas will support Blues, people from Gwent will support Dragons, then people from Swansea and the surrounding areas will support Ospreys and people from Llanelli and further west will support Scarlets. Add the support up for both regions in each of the east and the west and you will not be far off what the football teams in the same areas have.

Right, thirdly and this is a very important thirdly. In each and every town, village and city you will find one or two rugby clubs, for instance the Welsh premiership has a dozen clubs each getting on times up to a thousand spectators watching every week, then in the same towns you will get smaller clubs who will have a few hundred there watching week in week out, not to mention all the lower leagues, in my town alone there are about six rugby clubs, all of them get decent support. Our regions have to compete with the myriad of rugby clubs from within they're own regions, the football clubs do not have to compete with this sort of support.

The point I am trying to make with people is, that there is more than likely too much rugby in Wales to go around with the population of the country, I know of people who have family playing locally, they will go and watch their son, husband, farther play and not only that, they will help with the running of the club, they will make food in the clubhouse afterwards, they will organise events, now with so many people doing these things on a Saturday afternoon, how can they then be expected to spend more money and time on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday evening to go and watch their regions as well, especially when they are on the tele, and that is another thing, the rugby on BBC 2 Wales and S4C get massive viewing figures in Wales, and after listening to Roger Lewis, because of this, the money they get from the tele is the equivalent to getting an extra ten thousand people through the gates for each game.

Lastly, if we look at things rationally, when the national teams of both football and rugby have a game and all the fans go to watch and support, when the Welsh national football side has a match, you do not get the interest that the Welsh rugby team gets, this shows what happens when ALL the supporters of each sport get together for that one game, rugby will generate 70,000 people in a stadium and hundreds of thousands who will congregate into their local pubs and clubs, and fill their town centres or go down to the capital just for the atmosphere, the Welsh national football side just does not generate this kind of support, that is because, every fan of every rugby club in Wales equates to more people than every fan of every football club, so to summarise, rugby is as strong as it ever has been in Wales, there is just too much of it to go around.

LordDowlais wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Giving my age away

Well you have got ten years on me Bed. But isn't it strange the your decade and my decade did not alter that much, what has happened to the las two decades that has changed all this ? kids being molly coddled, thats what it is, too many mammies boys, being handed everything on a plate. God I sound like my farther.

Mrs Beds works in schools and I was amazed through late 80s early 90s when she came home and said competitive sports were being removed from the curriculum because of fear of upsetting those who lost FFS there is winners and losers in every walk of life and if you lose it should then spur you on to do better etc etc

The Saint wrote:LD it's no wonder Ospreys aren't getting the numbers through the gate... Shifty drives a 4x4 but refuses to give anyone a lift. That's 7 more people not turning up to watch the region!

Na I drive a truck and a Citroen C2 1.6TDI - it's only got 4 seats and the car was full.

bedfordwelsh wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Giving my age away

Well you have got ten years on me Bed. But isn't it strange the your decade and my decade did not alter that much, what has happened to the las two decades that has changed all this ? kids being molly coddled, thats what it is, too many mammies boys, being handed everything on a plate. God I sound like my farther.

Mrs Beds works in schools and I was amazed through late 80s early 90s when she came home and said competitive sports were being removed from the curriculum because of fear of upsetting those who lost FFS there is winners and losers in every walk of life and if you lose it should then spur you on to do better etc etc

My 4 year old niece got sent home on sports day because during a race all the kids were all supposed to stop before the finish line, all hold hands and cross together, naturally she said screw that and ran straight through to win herself. Her logic was she got to the line first so deserved to win. No one in our family thought she was wrong in her thinking.

No one gets sent home from school! I'm sure it would be against some sort of law.

bedfordwelsh wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Giving my age away

Well you have got ten years on me Bed. But isn't it strange the your decade and my decade did not alter that much, what has happened to the las two decades that has changed all this ? kids being molly coddled, thats what it is, too many mammies boys, being handed everything on a plate. God I sound like my farther.

Mrs Beds works in schools and I was amazed through late 80s early 90s when she came home and said competitive sports were being removed from the curriculum because of fear of upsetting those who lost FFS there is winners and losers in every walk of life and if you lose it should then spur you on to do better etc etc

Rings a bell.
Wish i'd kept the letter from Ms Liberal, the head teacher at my son's school. Bonkers mun.

Today in the Welsh Premiership...
Llanelli Rovigo 7 - 91 Carmarthen Quins

That is some score CD

Allty wrote:That is some score CD

Speaks volumes.

Cardiff Dave wrote:

Allty wrote:That is some score CD

Speaks volumes.

It sure does, most the Llanelli RFC boys where busy beating London Irish for the region.

This just doesnt stack up 2TR.

Allty wrote:This just doesnt stack up 2TR.  

Good timing Allty and well spotted. I'm sure Llanelli RFC had the same number of players as Quins.

Cardiff v Pontypool 1988. How rammed is the North stand? Wouldn't be allowed today. Easily in excess of 15k I reckon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9yA6jLvsWM

Newport v All Blacks 1963. 2.5 million people in the Hazell Terrace. Every man woman and child in Newport was there, apparently. Even I was there and I was born in '77!

No different to Dragons v Aironi last season to be honest...

https://youtu.be/u3AZ-b4vQ2g

Cardiff Dave wrote:

Allty wrote:This just doesnt stack up 2TR.  

Good timing Allty and well spotted. I'm sure Llanelli RFC had the same number of players as Quins.

Both sides were missing players to the Regional side as the Scarlet's have spread the academy talent around all 3 feeder teams, rightly so if we are going to operate as a "Region". However of the matchday 23, 9 were regular Regional players so have been discounted as RFC players.
Of the other 14 -
3 are Drovers, - Warren, Day and W Jones.
4 are regular Quins, - Boyd, Bennet, Hardy, D Jones plus Adriaanse is listed there but does not generally play as he is Scarlet's contracted.
6 are Llanelli,- Lewis, Climo, Edwards, Rawlins, Harris, Evans.
So technically just 1 more from Llanelli than Carmarthen in the 23, but take into account the starting 15 and that changes to 2 from Landover, 1 from Carmarthen and 4 from Llanelli, add in the Llanelli trio lost to injury playing for the Scarlet's in the last month (Steffan Hughes, Steffan Evans, Jordan Williams) and maybe will see why it does.

Or I guess you could just keep looking at out of date squad lists on the websites with most the players missing from them.

2ndtimeround wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

Allty wrote:This just doesnt stack up 2TR.  

Good timing Allty and well spotted. I'm sure Llanelli RFC had the same number of players as Quins.

Both sides were missing players to the Regional side as the Scarlet's have spread the academy talent around all 3 feeder teams, rightly so if we are going to operate as a "Region". However of the matchday 23, 9 were regular Regional players so have been discounted as RFC players.
Of the other 14 -
3 are Drovers, - Warren, Day and W Jones.
4 are regular Quins, - Boyd, Bennet, Hardy, D Jones plus Adriaanse is listed there but does not generally play as he is Scarlet's contracted.
6 are Llanelli,- Lewis, Climo, Edwards, Rawlins, Harris, Evans.
So technically just 1 more from Llanelli than Carmarthen in the 23, but take into account the starting 15 and that changes to 2 from Landover, 1 from Carmarthen and 4 from Llanelli, add in the Llanelli trio lost to injury playing for the Scarlet's in the last month (Steffan Hughes, Steffan Evans, Jordan Williams) and maybe will see why it does.

Or I guess you could just keep looking at out of date squad lists on the websites with most the players missing from them.

Haven't checked a squad list for yonks.