I honestly think this RWC marks a watershed moment in Welsh rugby.

We have a few key players likely to miss the 6N, a few who are coming to the end of their useful tenure, and a new coach. I'd not be entirely shocked if we had a terrible 6N, and blooded a bunch of new talent.

Ficsed.

Frodder ffs you have one job


Seven

I'm just grateful we have Scotland, Italy and France at home.

I hadn't realised you knew my entire working life

Team Pivac should be assembling for the 6n

15. Liam
14. Mcnichol/ Lane
13. Lane/ Mcnichol
12. Halaholo
11. Josh Adams
10. Patch
9. Tomos
8. Faletau
7. Basham
6. Navidi
5. AWJ
4. Hill
3. Griff
2. Owens
1. Carre

Rob Evans
Owens
Francis
Beard
Tipuric
Jarrod
Gareth Davies
Steff Evans

We need to start building strength in depth at prop now. Mcnichol and Lanes preferred position is 13. Both are exciting players, so let’s get one or both playing there to add more creativity to our attack.
If Pivac and Jones are going to introduce a more expansive game m, then it is absolutely imperative that we get significantly more attacking threats in the side. Basham is the future for Wales. We have a lot of good 7’s, but Basham is special.

Aaron Jarvis and Daf Howells back for the Dragons, as well as Brok Harris being close to a new deal...all good news.

After KidA's post, I had a thought.
Now the WRU have decided to fund the Scarlets in future nearly £2m more than Cardiff, does this mean, they have to pick a certain amount of players from each team?

With Adams, Lane, halaholo, Jarrod, Tomos, Navidi, Ellis and Lewis all most likely to be in the 6N, and scarlets receiving £2m+ extra funding from base as opposed to cardiffs £0.5m, you'd expect 32 players from Llanelli to justify the extra...

How long until this huge funding gap causing in fighting between the regions and the WRU unlike all seen before?

Personally, I can't wait to watch CCRFC play Bristol, Bath and Gloucester

Patch and Liam are injury doubts for the 6 nations.

Wouldn't drop Wainwright, he's superb. Other than that I agree though.

Surprised it hasn't already.

With Gats gone who was holding it together then our results will go downhill followed by a good ol' fashioned shit fight. Let's face it we haven't had one for a while

I don't think the national team will drop off a cliff, but I'd be very surprised if we weren't more up and down. I reckon Pivac will get us some big scalps playing a style of rugby that will please a lot of people, but the downside with that is we'll be more prone to mistakes and lose games that we'd have won under Gatland. I would be surprised if Pivac was able to maintain all the superb discipline, defensive wall attributes while also adding to the attack...something will slip a little, but I think he's going to have plenty of goodwill in the bank and enough quality to rumble along for a while before any real sh*tfighting breaks out.

The regions on the other hand - the nonsense around project reset and the proposed merger was an absolute shambles. There's plenty more powder to be ignited in that keg.

Whole load of cliches there.

The only thing which is a scalp would be beating NZ, and we have a 3 test series next summer.

If pivac wants to prove he has it, it's a perfect opportunity.

It's international rugby, he can't afford to have a bad 6N and has no excuses if he does

No. It's based on historical provision and success. So expect it to change season on season. We can revisit this post when Cardiff provide a load of players and get a load of money, and when the Ospreys provide a load of players and get a load of money. Not dragons though.

By the way, all the 4 teams signed up to it, like everything else. They are complicit in this abject failure of Welsh domestic rugby.

It cant be historical if the scarlets budget is higher than cardiff and ospreys, given their overall contribution to team Wales equals cardiffs and is comfortably bested by Ospreys.

Which leaves one season of the incumbent Welsh coach in charge to judge by for future success.
I bet cardiff and the ospreys had a strong hand at the table when discussing terms

It's a mixture of performances on the pitch, players delivered to Wales, coaching, Academy, governance, ability to create more through commercial interests and sponsors etc.

The current WRU money is allocated to the regions as such:

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

Historical as in the past 2-3 years I would guess. It makes no sense otherwise. With some of the players coming out of the Dragons, they should soon see greater monies. I wonder how it works with people like Anscombe, Scott W, Aled now at the Ospreys given they did little to develop them?

So Theflier seems to think Scarlets have a £2M+ advantage over the Blues. can't seem to fid his numbers earlier in the thread, but where do you both get this info? By KidA's numbers, the advantage is half that.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/sport/amp/rugby-union/50398627

May have jumped the gun with our tributes to Leigh last week

Gatland's just finishing an interview with Off the Ball. He really goes into some stuff I've never heard of before, it's a good one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40dli6NIm0M

Why no Ellis Jenkins

When does he come back from injury?

McNichol keeps saying he is a centre at heart, but he didn't fair well either in NZ or with Pivac at the Scarlets. He is a wing first and foremost then a fullback, but never a centre IMHO.

Who is our 2nd choice lock now - Ball or Hill?

With Beard and hopefully Seb Davies coming good, is there life after AWJ?

Any other locks on the horizon?

When does Pivac announce his first squad?
Are there any non antipodean bolters on the horizon?
A couple of lads from Sale perhaps?

Good interview, surprised the Irish are still pissed at BoD being dropped for the third Aus test.

On top of those numbers, is however much the team can afford to lump in - given levels of sponsorship and rich people chucking money in. Scarlets have so many shirt sponsors etc that their wage bill goes to £7.7m (finally on a par with Ulster and Munster etc, but not Leinster. Although it will inevitably go down next season as we are not in the Champions Cup)

Cardiff don't measure up in this commercial area so they can only afford a playing squad of £6m

Here's WOL take on it

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/wales-rugby-squad-six-nations-17244334

Well that's depressing and hopefully way off the mark

None of the English-based options are available (game is outside the WR international window)

Sorry, for clarity I meant in his first meaningful squad.
Not this cash cow. But hey I hope we see some new faces.

He hasn’t played centre at the Scarlets.

I think he had a game or two, last season or the one before.

We're finally going to get a look at Tom Griffiths, but looks a pretty new team in general. Jarvis at loosehead, Howells back on the wing, Max Williams in the second row...interesting team but I wonder if Castres are taking it seriously?

Yeah, I'm glad he's trying so many different people. Hopefully Castres aren't taking it that seriously they're 11th in the Top14 so they may well be focusing on that.

I can't recall McNicholl ever starting a game in the centre.

It's also good we're giving a bit of a rest to guys like Jordan Williams, Rhodri Williams, Ashton Hewitt, Adam Warren...and to a lesser extent as they're on the bench Brok and Screech. Nice as a good Euro campaign will be, I think we have to be focused on the league first and foremost. If Jarvis plays well at loosehead, Max Williams plays well at lock and Griffiths proves a genuine contender at 12 it's going to stand us in good stead for the next round of games.

Yes, it could be a really good proving ground for some of the players and we do need those players that you named to play well.

How is Max Williams progressing?
He seemed a bit of a talent a couple of years ago at age grade.

He spent most of last year injured. Was given his debut for the Dragons under Jackman so seems like he's been around a while and looked pretty good at that point, albeit in very small glimpses, but last year was basically a write off. This season is the first time in a long time we've had a chance to see his progress. He's been on the bench covering lock this season but not had much time on the pitch (perhaps not trusted yet by Ryan?)...so hopefully we see him kick on now, but apart from comments from Ceri Jones along the lines of 'he's filled out, becoming much more physical' and the usual talk about his potential we just don't know how good he is. I have my fingers firmly crossed...