Whenever I see GN get knocked out it makes me think of this 😣🙁🙁

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11264856

However its that old canard ” the welsh teams don’t have the funding” the scots teams on similar funding seem to have managed to get a couple of decent coaches

We’ve had exactly the same discussion every year on these threads. You have no more of an idea of the funding situation than any of the rest of us, TJ, but if you can point us all in the direction of some real figures we’d all be grateful.

(Only a few years ago, the Dragons couldn’t afford new kit for the new season. Obviously they must have spent all of their cash on sausage rolls and pasties..)

Money well spent then! 👍

Ireland’s game against Italy has been cancelled. Guessing England’s game will be too given that it was away.

How will this impact upon the championship given that both Ireland and England would have been confident of getting four points at the minimum.

Idlejohn. Its scraps of info gleaned over the years. I agree its hard to get to and not very transparaent)
Some numbers here which again show the scots and the welsh are comparable
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/exactly-how-much-each-welsh-16514855
Playing budgets: Dragons £4.8m, Cardiff Blues £5.9m, Ospreys £6.4m, Scarlets £7.7m.

Glasgow operate on a playing budget of around £6.5m and Edinburgh £6m.

Those scots figures are in line with what I have seen elsewhere

Edit – if you want poverty tales its not long ago that Glasgow had to play a semi pro prop and Edinburgh had the lowest budget in the pro 12

Ireland’s game against Italy has been cancelled.

Ultimately, it was Ireland’s call.

Postponed not cancelled.

If Ire beat France they will surely want to play Italy some other time.

Actually it could be really interesting if England’s game against Italy also gets called off and Ire beat France and Eng beat Wales.
Currently Eng and Ire are on the same points with same bonus points, Eng +12 point diff and Ire +5.
Assuming neither got a bonus point against France/Wales, it could all come down to who could smash Italy the most!!

The same happened with a game (maybe more?) during the Foot and Mouth scare in 2001. I vaguely remember Ireland v Wales played in September? Makes a farce of the competition.

As one of my colleagues has pointed out, not many of those Italian travelling fans will get a refund because the match is cancelled, so they’ll still travel and have a weekend away in Dublin.

Playing budgets: Dragons £4.8m, Cardiff Blues £5.9m, Ospreys £6.4m, Scarlets £7.7m.

Glasgow operate on a playing budget of around £6.5m and Edinburgh £6m.

The welsh figures are not “playing budget” thats total money received and you appear to have made up the Scottish ones.

Actually those figures are copied directly from the wales on line link I provided.

The scottish teams TOTAL budget is around 7.5 million each. Thats a pretty solid figure.

Read the article I linked to which explains how it gets the numbers. I am surprised Scarlets are that high but its clear the amounts of money are broadly comparable

Taking those criteria into account, the PRB distribution to each region for next season will be roughly as follows:

Dragons £3.4m, Cardiff Blues £4.9m, Ospreys £5.3m, Scarlets £6m.

The Dragons figure was due to be £3.1m, but the PRB have agreed to allocate them an additional £300,000.

This was after chairman David Buttress argued they could find themselves dangerously thin on numbers up front if forwards Ross Moriarty, Cory Hill, Elliot Dee, Aaron Wainwright and Leon Brown were all selected for the World Cup in Japan.

You can read the full details on how this came about here.

Ross Moriarty is one of five Dragons forwards who could be heading to the World Cup in Japan (Image: Ben Evans/Huw Evans Agency)
Is that all the money the regions receive?

No it’s not.

In addition to the £20m of direct WRU funding, there’s a further £11.7m of TV and competition money which the regions generate themselves.

That is passed on to them by the Union and split four ways equally.

Then, of course, there are other streams of income.

The regions generate further cash themselves through sponsorship, such as shirt deals, other commercial activity, merchandise, corporate hospitality boxes and ticket sales.

And then there’s the amount put in by benefactors, which varies from region to region.

That delivers a total revenue figure per annum for the business.

TV revenue is a key source of income for the professional game in Wales (Image: Huw Evans Picture Agency)
A portion of that goes on operational costs, coaching and administrative staff and the academies.

Whatever is left then is available to be spent on the playing squad.

It’s important to remember that dual contracts – where the Union paid 60 per cent of a player’s wage and the region 40 per cent – have been phased out.

So, all salary costs are now down to the regions.

And, as it stands, the playing budgets for next season are around the following levels:

Dragons £4.8m, Cardiff Blues £5.9m, Ospreys £6.4m, Scarlets £7.7m.

Those numbers ( bar perhaps the scarlets) are also broadly in line with what I have seen elsewhere

Its clear that the idea the welsh teams do not have the budget to be competitive is nonsense. They have a similar spend to the scots and more than the Italians and only Leinster are significantly above

Its clear that the idea the welsh teams do not have the budget to be competitive is nonsense

Must be spending it all on pies then!
Now you’ve included the Irish provinces how do you compare that given the tax breaks to the players?

Anyway broadly speaking the welsh regions are pretty competitive with Scottish teams and the Italians. But in the context of new coaches and players they are competing with English and French clubs.

As we discussed a few weeks ago the priorities for the welsh regions are different from the Scots as the welsh are trying to look after Wales team players so that the national team can be competitive wheras the Scottish teams are stoked with Mercs and no internationals so that they can be more competitive. Meanwhile the Scottish national team has won nothing of note for decades.

Scottish teams are stoked with Mercs and no internationals so that they can be more competitive.

Not true at all. for Italy only Hogg, Maitland and Harris I think play outside scotland. Hutchison and McGuigan on the subs bench so 5 out of 23

We only have two teams – it has to be this way and the pro 14 teams are used as feeder teams for the national side with the SRU calling the shots on who plays where and when. the pro `14 teams are used to develop young players and they are allowed to move on later in their career

Outsiders are only brought in when there is no scots player available – hence Hastings starting at 21 yrs old and Fagersons x2 at 20 etc. but we do not have another 10 available who is of pro 14 standard so Edinburgh use to bought in players. If there was an up and coming scots player he would be playing

Edinburgh and Glasgow seem to have been able to attract decent international coaches competing with the english french and antipodians ( although question marks over Glasgows new coach!)

Sounds amazing, what have Edinburgh and Glasgow won recently?

Remeber Edinburgh had a bunch of players away n international duty – this is the team for last weekend. Scots =S PP – project player about to qualify – Mercenary – M

Damien Hoyland S
Eroni Sau, M
Mark Bennett S
Matt Scott,S
Duhan van der Merwe,PP
Simon Hickey, M
Nic Groom (capt) CANT REMEMBER
; Pierre Schoeman, PP
Mike Willemse, M
Simon Berghan, S
Stan South,S
Lewis Carmichael,S
Nick Haining,S
Luke Crosbie,S
Viliame Mata. M

Replacements: Cameron Fenton, S
Murray McCallum, S
Dan Winning, S
Jamie Hodgson, dUNNO
John Barclay, S
Charlie Shiel,S
Jaco van der Walt, PP
George Taylor. S

So 14 scots, 3 project players ie will be qualified soon and 4 merc and a couple I do not know

The scots teams have done rather better in the pro 14 than the welsh! Both scots above all the welsh right now

The scots teams have done rather better in the pro 14 than the welsh! Both scots above all the welsh right now

In the last 5 years Scarlets have one it once and been runner up once, same as Glasgow.
Not sure how both scots can be above all welsh as I am sure they are in different conferences.

Still doing rather better than some terms who are not doing well isnt a lot to shout about really!

Funnily enough looking at Wiki Edinburgh’s results are on a par with Neath!!

The same happened with a game (maybe more?) during the Foot and Mouth scare in 2001.

2001 Ireland v England as well (as well as Scotland vs Ireland) – notable to English fans as it was third year in a row when Woodward’s team had a chance to win a Grand Slam in the final game but they botched it in Martin Johnson’s absence.

The big problem with rescheduling the matches is the congested rugby calendar. It’ll also impact on the coaches access to players; there is a clause in the RFU / prem clubs that will grant Eddie access to his players. Italy for example don’t have the same clause. I guess the biggest impact will be those playing abroad.

There do seem to be murmurings of the 6N not actually being completed which I doubt will be popular given that the WC draw is later this year so rankings are important.

Leinster absolutely humped Glasgow last night. Who can stop them? they just seem to have everything right.

Cardiff managed to lose to Edinburgh too, despite Edinburgh playing shite!

Biggar has left the pitch for Northampton injured. Got to be a worry for Wales.

Both 10’s in the Quinn’s Exeter game are having cracking games. Kicking well and both scoring tries. Good news for England.

Biggar : (
That’s Anscombe, Biggar and Patchell injured iirc.

The game was so poor I didn’t think it worth mentioning AA 😉

Mind you Cookers said he didn’t care about winning pretty just winning

Quins / Exeter was a cracker of a game

If Biggar is broke we are screwed, Jarrod Evans and then who to bench, Priestland may well get called up!

Priestland may well get called up!

I don’t think it would be unreasonable to break the 60 cap rule in such extreme circumstances if Priestland was deemed the best player available. But, most people seem to think that would set a precedent. Sam Davies?

Sam Davies is shite! Although you are right he is the next in line.

I know I shouldnt be laughing as he will be getting a long ban, but this is bloody funny and exactly whatva ten should get when he tries to get involved in hand bags with the forwards!!

Double Face Punch from Sam Lousi Vs Munster. Don’t see many of these nowadays! (A red card soon followed) from rugbyunion

At least he made a red card and ban worthwhile by throwing plenty of punches at plenty of players. 😂

Even as he’s being punched, one of the Munster players starts ‘appealing’ to the referee. I’ll bet they start shouting ‘Aww ref’ when they find that they’ve run out of cereal at breakfast time.

Well deserved red but there is something odd in that he was disengaging and it was all settling down then he came back in with the punches. Warra plonker!

Highlights of the Edinburgh game on the BBC

A whole 31 seconds!

Well, this would really poo on my strawberries

The only sports I watch (F1 and rugby) would be behind a paywall 😒

Agreed Two dogs. Rugby authorities seem to be on a mission to make rugby expensive to watch.

Another in agreement. Rugby is the only sport I watch. If it goes pay to view, then I’ll not watch it.

If it goes pay to view, then I’ll not watch it.

Me neither. It’s so short-sighted….they only have to look at the impact on the popularity of cricket and golf when they became pay-to-view to see how it will impact rugby. Rugby is struggling anyway, this could kill it.

I thought rugby 6N was on the protected list so must remain free? Mind you Sky being one of the tories paymasters?

Edit – bollox – schedule B which means it can go so long as highlights are shown on free tv

Desperate for even the smallest hint of good news re Scottish rugby this’ll have to do.

Word from within the Scotland camp is that Finn Russell and Gregor Townsend have kissed and made up. Russell still won't play in the Six Nations but looks set to return for the summer tour to SA and NZ.

— Alasdair Reid (@AlasdairReid3) March 1, 2020