Ospreys at odds with WRU over claims
THE Welsh Rugby Union and the Ospreys will see out the old year with daggers drawn after startling claims that the governing body were planning for life without Wales's most successful region.
Rob Davies, one of the Pro12 champions' key investors, alleges that the union discussed with the Scarlets last summer a scenario that would have seen the West Walians' recruitment policy being based on Ospreys players.
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Welsh Rugby Union chief Roger Lewis
At the time the Ospreys had been threatened with a winding-up order over an outstanding tax bill.
Davies claimed: "There is no doubt the union were planning a future without the Ospreys.
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"Their plan was to introduce a new region in North Wales and that the Scarlets would take our players.
"I had been told during the summer that the Scarlets' recruitment policy was to be based on recruiting players from us because we were going to be put out of business.
"Then we were told by people in the game to be prepared that the Heineken Cup would be going ahead without us. It's incredible but we know this for a fact. The truth has got to come out."
Davies added that the union contemplated a future without the Ospreys "because they thought we were in the weakest position financially.
"The PriceWaterhouseCoopers report into the state of the professional game in Wales hadn't been published then but they thought it would show that we were in real difficulty.
"They didn't discuss the report with us.
"It stated that we were 'fundamentally' the strongest of the four regions, not the weakest."
The union could argue that they were making contingency plans for a world minus the Ospreys at a time when the region had a winding-up order against them postponed for two months over an unpaid tax bill.
That still wouldn't explain why the governing body apparently didn't see the need to ask the Liberty Stadium region how serious was the threat and enquire whether they needed any help.
With four league titles and an Anglo-Welsh cup final success, the Ospreys are comfortably the most successful region.
Last week they attracted almost 20,000 fans to the Liberty for the game with the Scarlets, and they sold nearly 9,400 membership packages last summer.
For them to have fallen last summer would have left a hole at the heart of regional rugby and led to bitter disappointment for their thousands of season ticket-holders, among them children who see the Ospreys players as icons.
Only last week WRU chief Roger Lewis raised the spectre of four regions being reduced to three.
But with the Ospreys the best-performing of the four professional sides, it would beggar belief if they were casualties of any shake-up.
MARK ORDERS
Comments
by HaroldMonk
Monday, December 31 2012, 3:39PM
“We should go to the Aviva”
by HaroldMonk
Monday, December 31 2012, 3:39PM
“Dragons will become a Premiership side?”
by dynamicdave
Monday, December 31 2012, 3:04PM
“The very fact that the WRU and the Scarlets were apparently prepared to talk about the financial position of the Ospreys WITHOUT any involvement of the O's is tantamount to skullduggery of the worst sort.
It shows the bias that we Ospreys fans have always talked about, but far worse than we could imagine.....no wonder Cuddy walked.
Roger the dodger Lewis should now do one too.”
by Bulldog7
Monday, December 31 2012, 2:06PM
“Isn't it time that Roger Lewis was sacked. White man speak with fork tongue”
by VISIONSKI
Monday, December 31 2012, 12:43PM
“Lets be honest here if there is any truth in these rumours the WRU got alot to answer for. Firstly the Ospreys have been the most successful region and have supplied the most players for the National side. Perhaps now the whole picture has come out regarding the finances of all the regions the WRU will look in their own back yard i.e. Cardiff. No way would we se this region sacrificed to suit the Scarlets or any other region for that matter. To have discussed this possibility without consulting the Ospreys Directors is dispicable and disloyal. All regions should be involved as a body not one party ganging up on another,that is the way forward for the future of Welsh Rugby.”
by hobbles
Monday, December 31 2012, 10:45AM
“Roger Lewis ??? David Pickering ??????”