URC 2023/24

Buer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121556575#Comment_121556575

Warburton's opinion carries far more influence than others. For a start, he has a national forum to air his opinions both in print and on TV. He's probably the most respected Welsh rugby figure of his generation. Secondly, as a board member with Cardiff, he is one of the suits.

His proposal doesn't include the English Championship. It's a two tier competition of the English and Celtic teams. Two divisions of 10 with movement only between them (and a single English Championship team playing off against an English team for promotion into the tournament).

It's an extremely ill thought out proposal but Warburton's take will 100% have influence within Wales and fan the flames of division.

Ben Bailey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121556360#Comment_121556360

He works for TNT

Brief_Lives

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121556571#Comment_121556571

Great comment.

Have you a link to his thread? (although unless there are responses allowed, maybe you have covered it)

icdg

Whatever about the Welsh, why would the other countries (including the English, for that matter) sign up to a competition that would necessarily involve some teams from each country being placed in the second tier, with all the commercial implications that would entail?

Let’s hypothetically say the split is based on league performance in PRL and URC regardless of country, with the top 5 in each (excluding SA/ITA in the case of URC obs) in the “Premiership” and the bottom 5 in the “Championship”. On the current table (and not taking into account the uneven number of fixtures played) the “Championship” would include all four Welsh regions and Connacht as well as Quins, Leicester, Bristol, Gloucester, and Newcastle. Is that the league Sam Warburton wants the Welsh to sign up for?

AdamD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121556571#Comment_121556571

You've highlighted the scariest part of the article, a member of the Cardiff board publically saying he doesn't care about their results in the URC. Incredible really.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121556360#Comment_121556360

He's probably looking at a potential rivalry with the English. The regions are muck. All of the teams are in the bottom half. Attendance is poor and there's not much interest. Playing the sasanach would probably drum up support. Although presently, the regions wouldn't compete with the sides in England.

Exclamation Marc

The Welsh constantly looking for an instant fix to their problems.

Whilst the possibilities of Warburtons suggestions may sound good on paper for the Welsh, the reality, as others have said, is that they would slide further into obscurity.

If you're at or near the top of the URC year-on-year, you could somewhat understand bemoaning the quality of the league. But all he's suggesting is putting those teams in a worse position than they're currently in. Utter stupidity.

StormForce13

It will be interesting to see the attendance figure for the Dragons-Scarlets "best of the worst" game this evening. The Dragons supporters seem pretty loyal, although after the team's stuffing in Cardiff on Boxing Day, even they may decide to vote with their feet having decided that they've suffered enough!

The Ospreys have sold out the Neath ground (capacity a mere 8,000) for the Cardiff game because they can't access the Liberty Stadium (which seems ridiculous, surely they could have looked at playing the game either yesterday or next Friday evening).

Dave_The_Sheep

Whilst the WRU is a huge majority part of the problem, the constant inability of Welsh rugby supporters as a whole to actually go support their teams is never acknowledged by them. No no, all the unions fault - even before they were found to be sexist incompetents - not ours. It's a convenient excuse now though. I know plenty of passionate Welsh rugby supporters who go to their club games, who I feel sorry for, but as a whole I have no time for them.

Neil3030

It’s worth having a read of this article, the story of the Welsh clubs turning down the offer to join an Anglo-Welsh league around 1999, culminating with them instead joining the Anglo-Scottish, and ultimately Celtic League instead. And why they lament the decision so...

I’d have some (limited) sympathies for them tbh. If indeed the proposal by the English clubs would only have had 2 Welsh sides in the top tier of 14 (3 others in the second tier) and sides that were selected by PRL and not the WRU. You can see why the WRU would be hesitant to essentially kill their domestic league for a new league that didn’t seem to value their teams, combined with completely relinquishing control.

With that said, there a few insights into the very flawed and very amateurish thinking of Welsh Rugby. For starters, the often bandied truism (at least on social media) that cross-border (i.e., Anglo-Welsh) is historically what Welsh fans really care about (in turn creating more interest and more sustainable economic conditions) never seems to have existed. In terms of emotional aspects, the Welsh more or less exist to hate the English, that's certainly true. But is there any historical evidence of thriving cross-border competition prior to the Heineken Cup? The article instead suggests that Welsh teams were struggling to sustain themselves (i.e., just playing each other) in the late 90s, and were seeking an alternative competition such as an Anglo-Welsh league. It seems as though the only time Welsh and English sides played each other semi-regularly was in the “rebel” season of 1998, when English and Welsh clubs were arguing with their respective ruling bodies, and set up a tournament of friendlies between each other.

So I have no idea where statements like this from journalist Peter Jackson (in 2022) come from:

The attractive part of Welsh rugby as it was then was the cross border matches and here was a opportunity to maintain those fixtures but make them even more meaningful within the context of a league structure featuring promotion and relegation. It would have been fantastic.

Outside of the rebel season, when were such fixtures even a part of Welsh Rugby? (Maybe I'm missing something?)

And as for such fixtures being theoretically “attractive”, that article points out:

As for the rebel season, well that petered out somewhat, with English clubs increasingly fielding second string sides

So it really makes you wonder how (again, in 2022) people like Gareth Davies could say things like:

When you are playing against the likes of Bath, Exeter, Gloucester and Bristol - four teams just 60, 70 miles away - you are looking at putting 2,000 on the gate each week with travelling fans.

It all seems to be an assumption, rather than a memory. Yet Davies still makes the point regarding the decision not to join the Anglo-Welsh league:

It was a huge missed opportunity and if we had said yes you would have had a club-based elite and probably never gone to regions.

And remember, he's talking about clubs here, not regions. I.e., in 2022, leading thinkers in Welsh rugby think their five “elite” clubs (we are talking about Cardiff, Swansea, Llanelli, Pontypridd and Ebbw Vale) would now be sustainable as part of an Anglo-Welsh league where teams in cities like Worcester, Coventry and London have all proven unsustainable.

And that's before you even factor in the pitiful turnout for Anglo-Welsh fixtures in the Heineken Cup.

Sadly, it all seems like they're living in a fever dream. Thank Christ we got the Saffers on board before the English did....

icdg

Also Wales related, but on a different point - the BBC were apparently forced to abandon coverage from Bridgend of Ospreys v Cardiff with four minutes to go due to technical difficulties, with the picture apparently having been next to unwatchable in the final twenty minutes.

sligeach

That was a class try from Ulster. Beautifully weighted kick across the field and well finished.

phog

Attack & Defence stats for ball in the 22

Note, it includes European games too

https://twitter.com/rpetty80/status/1742171288116908452?t=0XDZelDWIbYW7Q2Gr9L-uw&s=19

Neil3030

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121561350#Comment_121561350

Interesting that Munster top the defensive stats despite the injuries and rotten results in the last month. Shows that it's by no means a systemic crisis, and that there's a foundation there to build on.

Ulster's potent line-out maul surely a large factor in them topping the attacking stats.

50HX

It's a bit of a half time scoreline stat tho, it would be interesting to see it at the end of season

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121557571#Comment_121557571

The grá welsh fans have for the idea of an anglo-welsh league is divorced from reality, genuinely baffling. Why would Welsh punters be more interested in watching their teams be **** against English teams as opposed to Irish or SA ones?

I think a more dynamic proposal than a B&I league as mooted by Warburton would be to bring bring some of the better English teams into the URC. Organize it into smaller conferences. The love for promotion and relegation is so anachronistic. It's massively financially destabilizing and plays a large part in the need for rich owners splurging trying to win.

Paul Smeenus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121563526#Comment_121563526

Ulster have used the lineout maul an awful lot less this season, whereas it was the absolute bedrock last season (Tom Stewart top URC try-scorer). McFarland has been explicit about defaulting to it last season as part of a really conservative streak, and that we wouldn't play the same way this season.

I'd imagine it's slightly skewed by the Leinster game, in which we were only in Leinster's 22 a handful of times. And I'd say it's an outlier.

But the lineout maul explains last season's score rather than this season's, and our points per visit last season was decidedly average.

icdg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121564369#Comment_121564369

I think you need to appreciate where that is coming from, look at the reaction in the football fandom to the European Super League proposal, nor is it confined to England, Laliga TV had “#earnitonthepitch” DOGs on their screen during the round of games before Christmas. The love for promotion and relegation, in England particularly, is very real, the idea that the likes of Luton Town can claw their way up from the National League to the Premier League is there and regarded as important.

Now, as Nigel Owens used to tell us, “rugby is not football”, and that model which may be appropriate to a wholly private club owner model may not be so appropriate in a sport where so many of the professional teams are union owned. But the football model is what the owners in English rugby are aspiring to, they look at the £££ in English football and want a piece of that pie. And yes the money isn’t there, in rugby, and the model they are pressing has seen three clubs with huge history go bankrupt. But that is the mindset you are dealing with in England and it needs to be appreciated. They are going to want clubs from Wales (and indeed Ireland/Scotland) to move to their model, not the other way around, the RFU won’t be buying the English clubs.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121556814#Comment_121556814

I think the use of the word "Conferences" rather than "Divisions" would suggest they want a 10 team English conference and a 10 team Celtic conference, or maybe smaller conferences where teams are more regionally based and to not have promotion or relegation

Rigor Mortis

The only way that wales are getting into the Premiership is as part of a B&I league. The hedge fund shareholders will be sure of that.

Schorpio

Can anyone explain why to me why we are having a few weeks off now? (Genuine question!)

The league started much later this year (due to the RWC) - and later than our English and French counterparts. Most of the national squad players don't to seem to have played much rugby in the URC this season (comparatively) and will disappear again soon to the Irish training camp.

The league has played fewer than half its scheduled games (excluding playoffs). Would it not have made more sense to have had the breaks align better with the 6N?

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121564696#Comment_121564696

The league has played exactly half of its scheduled games. We've just had round 9 of 18. The only games during the 6N are on the break weekends.

And clubs have had 11 weeks in a row without a break. Normally the league starts late Sep/early Oct and breaks during the AIs. That allows more games in January. Personally I'm happy that the Irish teams have a week off before heading back into Europe.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121564541#Comment_121564541

I can appreciate the historical context, but the evidence would suggest that it simply isn't sustainable. Either they do a massive reset and commit to lower wages across the board, which would see an exodus of their top players for an entire generation, or they keep circling the drain. Rugby isn't viable outside of France in that sort of professional model currently. The Japanese leagues exist because of corporate sponsorship. I feel for the players, because they should always get paid as much as possible, but the owners have raised the floor out of step with their ability to generate profits, and it's bearing disastrous fruit.

Schorpio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121565785#Comment_121565785

Thanks. I'm an idiot - I completely forgot that we have two weeks of European rugby in Jan. Without that, the break seemed really long until the next round of fixtures, that's why I was wondering.

I thought we were two games shy of the halfway point (I mixed up Leinster winning 7 with having played 7) - but it's been 9, you're spot on. Forget I said anything!!

Neil3030

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121564517#Comment_121564517

McFarland has been explicit about defaulting to it last season as part of a really conservative streak, and that we wouldn't play the same way this season

Wait, so he basically said - "we're going to stop doing that thing we were really good at"?

What's the logic there?

I take your point otherwise.

Neil3030

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121564369#Comment_121564369

Yeah it's a sorry state indeed.

I don't think anybody would blame them for wanting to see their sides play English sides more often. You can't tell a Tipp hurling fan to not care about beating Cork. A Meath football fan to not care about beating Dublin. Etc. This one is purely emotion, politics, history, etc. Fair enough.

But how often would their fans keep turning out if their sides (as they currently are) were being routinely hockeyed by second-string English clubs?

I suppose it's theoretically possible that the WRU could keep maybe 2 sides competitive in the Premiership. If they got their act together, downsized, spread the players evenly, etc. Make teams with a meaningful identity (I've long argued the regions should be split on language (English vs Welsh), not geography).

But I don't think history offers hugely optimistic evidence that WRU can or would do this tbh.

And it all assumes the remaining English clubs would agree to chop up their TV revenues into thinner slices, given that the Welsh sides would surely bring little benefit in terms of increased TV or gate receipts?

Schorpio

And it all assumes the remaining English clubs would agree to chop up their TV revenues into thinner slices, given that the Welsh sides would surely bring little benefit in terms of increased TV or gate receipts?

Therein lies the crux of why this won't happen. The English sides cannot afford to take any dip in revenue. Some of them are skating on thin ice as it is, and the RFU can't afford to have any more teams go bust. The Welsh sides have not demonstrated that they would bring anything significant financially.

Aside from that, if I were the RFU, I would not been too keen on jumping into bed with the WRU at the moment, given what a shambles the WRU has been of late.

If the Welsh teams were doing well in the URC, I don't think any of this would be an issue. It's similar in my mind to when the English and French clubs pushed for reform of the Heineken Cup when they weren't winning as often as they felt they should be. The format of the resulting Champions Cup has never been as good as the Heineken Cup was. I feel that both the URC and the Premiership would suffer the same fate if anything comes of this.

Paul Smeenus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121566771#Comment_121566771

That the supporters weren't happy that we had a load of very talented, exciting backs standing around scratching their hoops, and when we couldn't maul, we'd forgotten what we were supposed to do.

icdg

The lone URC fixture this weekend, Sharks v Lions, kicking off on TG4 shortly. English language coverage delayed on Premier 2 at 8:30pm.

Burkie1203

Sharks losing at home v Lions