Merthyr RFC set to become new force in Welsh Rugby

Chunky Norwich wrote:Good luck to them.

I thought Wrexham was bigger than Merthyr though?

LondonTiger wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:Good luck to them.

I thought Wrexham was bigger than Merthyr though?

Except Wresham is not a Valleys town

Chunky Norwich wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:Good luck to them.

I thought Wrexham was bigger than Merthyr though?

Except Wresham is not a Valleys town

The article says Merthyr is the biggest town in Wales. That's why I pointed that out.

Coleman wrote:I read on another forum last night that Matthew and Richie Rees are going to Merthyr and also that they're planning to get some of the top players in the Prem. A lot of bad feeling towards this as it is sern as a Thomas Brothers assault on Ponty and Valleys rugby.

Coleman wrote:. A lot of bad feeling towards this as it is sern as a Thomas Brothers assault on Ponty and Valleys rugby.

Chunky Norwich wrote:They bit off the hand that fed them.

LordDowlais wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:They bit off the hand that fed them.

Please explain.

Chunky Norwich wrote:Ungratefulness for the countless Cardiff players sent their way

LordDowlais wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:Ungratefulness for the countless Cardiff players sent their way

Chunky, you do realise were over half the Cardiff squad have come from originally don't you ?

Griff wrote:

Coleman wrote:I read on another forum last night that Matthew and Richie Rees are going to Merthyr and also that they're planning to get some of the top players in the Prem. A lot of bad feeling towards this as it is sern as a Thomas Brothers assault on Ponty and Valleys rugby.

Really?  Richie Rees was reported to have signed a coaching contract with the Dragons (academy I think).

bedfordwelsh wrote:

Griff wrote:

Coleman wrote:I read on another forum last night that Matthew and Richie Rees are going to Merthyr and also that they're planning to get some of the top players in the Prem. A lot of bad feeling towards this as it is sern as a Thomas Brothers assault on Ponty and Valleys rugby.

Really?  Richie Rees was reported to have signed a coaching contract with the Dragons (academy I think).

That's what I thought to Griff

GavinDragon wrote:Another excellent rugby facility that can also double up as a commercial venue is only good for Welsh rugby.

I honestly think this could be the biggest step the Blues have made to embrace the region since offering Ponty to host LV games at Sardis.

It will no doubt annoy many Ponty fans, and that is fair enough, but the only thing that will satisfy Ponty fans is either

1. a complete re-brand of the blues region, dropping cardiff from the name and games shared between CAP and at Sardis
2. the backing of a pro "valleys" region
3. the ability of a pro Ponty club side to compete at the top table

LordDowlais wrote:I would be chuffed to bits if Cardiff Blues played a few games at the Wern, I would not have to travel 35 miles to watch them lose then.

Steffan wrote:I got nothing against Merthyr RFC but I seem to be reading a lot of "The Cardiff & Merthyr Blues are going to own the monopoly on the Valley's and Ponty will be a pile of ashes which those filthy scum deserve'

So I tell you what...to those people I say...come back and rub it in my face when all this actually happens

LordDowlais wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:Ungratefulness for the countless Cardiff players sent their way

Chunky, you do realise were over half the Cardiff squad have come from originally don't you ?

GavinDragon wrote:

Steffan wrote:I got nothing against Merthyr RFC but I seem to be reading a lot of "The Cardiff & Merthyr Blues are going to own the monopoly on the Valley's and Ponty will be a pile of ashes which those filthy scum deserve'

So I tell you what...to those people I say...come back and rub it in my face when all this actually happens

Granted I do not visit the Gwald forum but I dont think it is that bad.

I just think people have had enough of certain spokespeople (either legitimate or otherwise) constantly berating the blues and the Welsh rugby for them no longer having a pro side.

offload wrote:Excuse my ignorance but I'm from the shires (that's monmouthshire) but where is this new hotbed of Welsh rugby?  Is it like Ponty, another Cardiff suburb?  

Steffan wrote:I got nothing against Merthyr RFC but I seem to be reading a lot of "The Cardiff & Merthyr Blues are going to own the monopoly on the Valley's and Ponty will be a pile of ashes which those filthy scum deserve'

So I tell you what...to those people I say...come back and rub it in my face when all this actually happens

Risca Rev wrote:Interesting that Ponty won't fire any shots at Merthyr, but are more than happy to have snipes at their superiors till they're blue (no pun intended) in the face.

Risca Rev wrote:Interesting that Ponty won't fire any shots at Merthyr, but are more than happy to have snipes at their superiors till they're blue (no pun intended) in the face.

The Saint wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:Ungratefulness for the countless Cardiff players sent their way

Chunky, you do realise were over half the Cardiff squad have come from originally don't you ?

It wasn't Ponty. That was discussed weeks ago.



But anyway, yeah, this is a great idea. I would like to see it happen to more clubs in North and South Wales though, especially North.

LordDowlais wrote:

That is not including players that have actually come from Pontypridd but had to totally bi-pass Pontypridd RFC to play pro rugby, and the swathes of players from Pontypridd in the Blues academy. So I would say that Pontypridd DO give a lot of players to the Cardiff Blues.

Every time the camera pans around the half-empty stands at the tragic Parc y Scarlets it skips, half-apologetically, over the sign proclaiming it as Heart and Soul Country. Once upon a time, maybe. Not anymore, butt.

The heart of Welsh rugby is still broken. And the bodies of Welsh rugby supporters do not turn up, unless that is in the ironically named Judgement Day they come along for the Double-header Fire Sale, piled high and cheap for a tenner. That's a surprise then. Not. What it is, though, is typical of the other missing ingredient in the Welsh rugby hierarchy today: Mind.

By which I mean the intelligence, and yes the honesty, to see that by any standards - attendances, achievements, affection - Regional Rugby has been a disaster. So much so that the poor old Black and Ambers give themselves, as Newport and Gwent Dragons, more names than a poseur in Downton Abbey, and still remain an echo of what they once truly were, whilst the Blue and Blacks have had to skulk back to their old lair, don antique stripes, run out to the (understandable) cry of  'Kairr-diff! Kairr-diff!' from their bewildered supporters, and can only sigh for the lost glory. I don't want to be-labour this any further other than by remarking that the concept of Llanelli's 'Region' extending to North Wales had all the reality of a Soviet statistician inflating steel production figures in outer Siberia, or that if the Ospreys are indeed a bird that occasionally flies it is precisely because they found a new club identity, not a joking regional one. Let's just say that if we want to put the heart back into our game we need to respect the Body and rediscover the Soul.

How do we do that? Well, I was struck the other day when I was making a documentary film for BBC Wales in their recent Valleys series, how wish-fulfilment is never the father or mother of the thought. We need, I argued in the film, to start with where we are now and what we own as our legacy. So far as the maligned Valleys are concerned they are, at almost a million people resident, three times the population of greater Cardiff. And so, unlike most other European City-Regions where that ratio (think Dublin, or even Manchester or Barcelona) is reversed, our Capital-Region is dependent on the Valleys for its bodies.

All attempts to suck those bodies permanently out of the Valleys to live rather than just work south of the M4 have failed. Do not think this has not caused resentment amongst estate agents, city planners, academics, and some employers. They need us, and for some incomprehensible (to them) reason, we don’t play the game according to the rules they like to set. My architect opponent in the film had a solution - the 'tough love' that would impel some 300,000 people to move, turn the upper valleys into a National Park and create bijou market towns, here and there, after bulldozing the terraced housing that is as much our characteristic landscape as mountains and rivers.

My key point, amongst many, was that we should instead make the unique proximity of our urban density not the problem perceived by the unimaginative but  the solution predicated by our history, our culture, and yes, our soul. People live through Time as well as in Space. That’s what we mean by a Culture.

Let's be clear, then, when we say 'We will Never be a Blue', that it is not an indictment of those of our players who, perforce, were, are and probably will be such. It is not nostalgia either for a Welsh rugby world that has gone as surely as our Valleys have themselves changed. It is not, too, some kind of denial of financial necessities in the game (countered in France by public subsidies as well as private owners). What it is, is a clear-headed and intelligent defiance of the sloppy wishful-thinking, imported by an asset-stripping Wizard of  Oz, which did not understand that the only feasible 'Regions' in our rugby heartland were East and West (if needs drive) and that club rugby, where the bodies once gathered as crowds, was once the authentic heartbeat of our game. It remains its Soul.

And that is why, when the Welsh XV triumph the broadcasters still chirrup, 'They'll be singing in the Valleys tonight!' Not, you'll note, in the Vale, or the City. Sometimes, as in this contemporary Wales, there is no desirable Whole without the crucial Part. Body and Soul. So, over to you Gareth, butt. In your heart you know it makes sense, and so do all those bodies stubbornly, proudly, still here, north of the M4, nursing the soul of Welsh rugby, and waiting for the real Judgement Day to come. If you want true rugby greatness, sooner rather than later, Mind will need to come into play again, propped up by Body and Soul and hooking the ball back so that we can all run forward together.  

Professor Dai Smith

Article commissioned for the Pontypridd RFC matchday magazine

Chunky Norwich wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

That is not including players that have actually come from Pontypridd but had to totally bi-pass Pontypridd RFC to play pro rugby, and the swathes of players from Pontypridd in the Blues academy. So I would say that Pontypridd DO give a lot of players to the Cardiff Blues.

Cardiff are clearly thankful for this. They give the players development contracts and nurture them through their careers with the intent on turning them into full time pros, and offer to play games at Sardis Rd.

Pontypridd on the other hand do not seem in the slightest bit thankful for the players they get for which they do not have to pay for.

LordDowlais wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:

That is not including players that have actually come from Pontypridd but had to totally bi-pass Pontypridd RFC to play pro rugby, and the swathes of players from Pontypridd in the Blues academy. So I would say that Pontypridd DO give a lot of players to the Cardiff Blues.

Cardiff are clearly thankful for this. They give the players development contracts and nurture them through their careers with the intent on turning them into full time pros, and offer to play games at Sardis Rd.

Pontypridd on the other hand do not seem in the slightest bit thankful for the players they get for which they do not have to pay for.

Hang on, I thought this was supposed to be a two way street, Ponty are doing their bit for regional rugby, how would they survive if they gave the amount of players that they are to Cardiff without having unused one's back ? They would have no players left for themselves.