Welsh rugby is moving into a new era where National Dual Contracts (NDC’s) attempt to help keep Welsh internationals in the Welsh regions. A major debate that has arisen is whether they should focus on bringing up Welsh talent or bring in experienced class from abroad.
Welsh Nationals or Foreign Talent ?
None other than 17 players have these contracts , including key stars such as Sam Warburton, Dan Biggar and Jonathan Davies, and so they are absolutely vital in keeping home grown talent within the four regions. However, many great players from France and even the southern hemisphere are looking for a place in the PRO 12 and so it may be a good time for Welsh clubs to invest in a few good players from abroad.
How Many Foreign Players?
A view has to be taken into account is that of developing further Welsh talent. However they do at least need some foreign talent embraced into the system to help develop younger players, but also to get the skill levels even higher to achieve better overall success. Perhaps an ideal number of foreign players would be around eight good standard players. Maybe who have won caps for their country. This however would come at a cost as many of these talented players come with a high wage packet, and Welsh regions cannot afford too many of those. This option would come with the added clause of two ”experienced players” over the age of 32-34 say where player quality stars to decrease, but clubs can still use their knowledge and experience to help the young upcoming kids along. This is a short term option, but is also the hardest to achieve as by buying in foreign talent the wages are higher, but success may (or may not) come quicker.
So this option would be a concept of a playing squad of 40 players, 30-32 of these are say home nationals from Wales, whereas the other 8-10 will be from abroad. Two to three players in each category will be in the experienced category of over 32-34 leaving 28-30 young welsh players and six to eight young foreign players.
Option B could be to focus fully on developing Welsh talents and hope for longer term success that is much much cheaper than buying in outside players.
Healthy Balance
This long term goal and use of grass roots players would make the system in Wales a much better one. The shift from foreign talent to home-made would improve academies further, aid region-club relations (if only with the clubs themselves as applied to the majority of supporters) and in turn produce more and even better Welsh internationals than before.
Benefactors
ACADEMIES:- They get more players selected for their region and so more players brought up that actually set out to achieve this goal.
REGIONS:- Get an influx of players to help them to success and aid them, financially, this could bring in crowds as well if more welsh talent and more success is endured.
WELSH NATIONAL TEAM- Get a larger player base to choose from and so success in just a few years time will be higher, and there would be a more well-rounded team rather than one that is big and love weight training , but struggle when it comes to fitness.
CLUBS:- Would get more players taken to academies if they are young enough and if there is any player in a contract when they are asked to join regional level, the club would get a full pay out as well, so no loss of money.
SUPPORTERS:-Would see their own clubs players more welcome and represented better at a regional level and so perhaps the link would be a less sour one that exists at the moment and so crowds at national, regional and grass roots could all increase.
Overall Welsh Rugby Is on an up and the introduction of NDC’s is sure to develop the system further. Sell-outs in the regional Christmas derbies has shown the players that fans want to see and so if the clubs bunch these big names with younger talent they can get a nice flow and structure in place as well as encouraging more fans to different levels of the game.
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