OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:

Alan G Bryant wrote:

Marky wrote:Who will Newport's rugby fans support if the Dragons go?

I think there is a hard core NRC following that refuses to watch the dragons, in essence they are the rugby equivalent of the MK dons, and I totally get that. Imagine Newport County split into a Gwent team and playing in obscure leagues?

I guess the worrying thing is that our landlords are also the same organisation that has totally f..ked up Welsh Rugby.

Whilst the WRU may be guilty of being unreasonable with the county at present to say they have f***ed up Welsh rugby is frankly nonsense. Since the concept of rugby going professional and the creation of regional rugby the national team has won several six nations championships , at least two grand slams and have been world cup semi-finalists,despite being massively under-resourced compared with England and France.

I do not mean the national team, I am talking of the dwindling attendances at club and regional level.

An Ulster man will always be an Ulster man , a Gwent man is either from the Valleys, Cwmbran or Newport and it will always be that way. The WRU have ripped that identity out of the towns and cities in my opinion and whilst you highlight the short term success, the long term implications maybe very different.

I think there is a hard core NRC following that refuses to watch the dragons, in essence they are the rugby equivalent of the MK dons, and I totally get that. Imagine Newport County split into a Gwent team and playing in obscure leagues?

I guess the worrying thing is that our landlords are also the same organisation that has totally f..ked up Welsh Rugby.[/quote]

Whilst the WRU may be guilty of being unreasonable with the county at present to say they have f***ed up Welsh rugby is frankly nonsense. Since the concept of rugby going professional and the creation of regional rugby the national team has won several six nations championships , at least two grand slams and have been world cup semi-finalists,despite being massively under-resourced compared with England and France.[/quote]


I do not mean the national team, I am talking of the dwindling attendances at club and regional level.

An Ulster man will always be an Ulster man , a Gwent man is either from the Valleys, Cwmbran or Newport and it will always be that way. The WRU have ripped that identity out of the towns and cities in my opinion and whilst you highlight the short term success, the long term implications maybe very different.[/quote]

Whilst agreeing with you about the dwindling attendances at club and regional level, and the loss of identity because of that, with the possible exception of Llanelli and Cardiff, unfortunately i would argue that the WRU had no option if it were to compete at a professional level with other professional nations. Results say they have been relatively successful at that. Furthermore the majority of the dragons players are drawn from the Gwent area and a lot of there supporters, including myself, identify with that.
O for the day, however naive it may be, that the same could be said for the county. This is probable a topic for a seperate thread, but unless this old mans memory is playing tricks with me, i'm sure that the team i watched regularly from the early sixties to the late seventies were always well represented with local players.

Alan G Bryant wrote:

Stan A. Einstein wrote:Not being a pedant I chose to use the term NRFC as interchangeable with Dragons.

The point made with which I agree entirely is that the senior rugby team and football team in Newport make common cause.

Fair enough, but how can we make common cause with an outfit that is owned by the same organisation that is currently pulling our pants down ?

The WRU have indicated that they wish to return Dragons to other ownership.

However your point is valid. If the WRU are intent as some believe to shaft Newport Rugby and move Dragons to north Wales then you're point becomes even more valid. However it also increases the incentive for Dragons to want to ally themselves with County. It also increases the power held by Newport City Council.

Interestingly myself and Amberexile take an utterly different view of what we should have done in the past. However a better point was made by another poster. The last thirty years have passed. What we should have done is academic.

My view remains that we need now to engage with the council and our rugby counterparts. It is as I said recently our last but potentially best hope.

I do so hope that we can now discuss these things without falling into the trap of simply rowing.

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:I think there is a hard core NRC following that refuses to watch the dragons, in essence they are the rugby equivalent of the MK dons, and I totally get that. Imagine Newport County split into a Gwent team and playing in obscure leagues?

I guess the worrying thing is that our landlords are also the same organisation that has totally f..ked up Welsh Rugby.

Whilst the WRU may be guilty of being unreasonable with the county at present to say they have f***ed up Welsh rugby is frankly nonsense. Since the concept of rugby going professional and the creation of regional rugby the national team has won several six nations championships , at least two grand slams and have been world cup semi-finalists,despite being massively under-resourced compared with England and France.[/quote]


I do not mean the national team, I am talking of the dwindling attendances at club and regional level.

An Ulster man will always be an Ulster man , a Gwent man is either from the Valleys, Cwmbran or Newport and it will always be that way. The WRU have ripped that identity out of the towns and cities in my opinion and whilst you highlight the short term success, the long term implications maybe very different.[/quote]

Whilst agreeing with you about the dwindling attendances at club and regional level, and the loss of identity because of that, with the possible exception of Llanelli and Cardiff, unfortunately i would argue that the WRU had no option if it were to compete at a professional level with other professional nations. Results say they have been relatively successful at that. Furthermore the majority of the dragons players are drawn from the Gwent area and a lot of there supporters, including myself, identify with that.
O for the day, however naive it may be, that the same could be said for the county. This is probable a topic for a seperate thread, but unless this old mans memory is playing tricks with me, i'm sure that the team i watched regularly from the early sixties to the late seventies were always well represented with local players.[/quote]

In my youth Newport Rugby played Cardiff 4 times a season to large attendances, and many a great battle with Pontypool and Newbridge. As I recall the Welsh side was also quite successful despite being played by amateurs.
Regionalisation is probably the worst of all worlds as local identity is lost, inter club rivalry does not exist and it has little appeal to the masses. When I look at the English scene where the historic identity has been retained, you see games with attendances that the Welsh Clubs can only dream of. Several times a year I will attend Exeter or Bath games, great atmospheres and generally full grounds. The money these Clubs have is what dreams are made of, and in the case of Exeter Chiefs is reflected in the continual development of their ground. The English side is not too bad either.

Taunton iron cider, whilst agreeing almost entirely with your summation of the rugby scene in Wales and England, I still maintain that the WRU had no option but to implement regionalisation if they were to compete in the professional rugby world. Afterall the attempt to maintain a professional welsh club league failed. The reality is we will never be able to compete financially with England. Oh how I used to enjoy those days in my youth of playing Cardiff 4 times a season, often to 10.000+ crowds, but those days are gone forever. Much less sport on tele those days of course.

Anyhow this conversation is going off thread now. I don't believe for a second that the Cuddy group going into administration will make any difference to the financial position of the dragons and /or the county.

Just a point of interest, I read in the Argus last week that Pontypool RFC are to move from the famous Pontypool Park and are currently searching for a suitable site to build a new fit for purpose stadium.
My thoughts on this are
1, where would they acquire such funding ? possibly from the WRU and some grants along with some council and private investment ??
2, once it’s built how would a small rugby club sustain the and service the ongoing upkeep of such a stadium ? Well it was mentioned that they were thinking of putting in an artificial pitch and opening it up to the public, I think this is where the council might come in to it, but more importantly if this ground is built it would be geographically perfect along with Ebbw Vale and Caerphilly to take the Dragons on the road around the region, they have already successfully held games at two of the venues.
The WRU would easily recoup any money given/spent on the new Pontypool stadium with the sale or redevelopment of the Whole of Rodney Parade.

I might be way way off the mark at this time as I am guessing, but it would be a very viable and workable option

Does "regional" rugby anywhere use multiple venues for first-team games? And if they did invest in Pontypool Park (which looks like a fantastic natural arena) and fund it by selling RP, would people from Newport travel there?

Though I’m not a fan of the egg, my understanding of the problems the region has have been around the fact the club is based in Newport where they pretty much only attract a predominantly Newport fan base, if I remember rightly the rest of the region boycotted the club because they wanted it to travel around.
Check the gates they had when they played at Caerphilly and Ebbw Vale my guess is they were bigger than they get at RP.

As I said I’m not a fan of the egg so my knowledge is based on vague recollections of things I’ve read or heard in the media.

Also you only have to look at how they’ve treated NRFC to see they don’t give a flying one about Newport

Newportonian wrote:Just a point of interest, I read in the Argus last week that Pontypool RFC are to move from the famous Pontypool Park and are currently searching for a suitable site to build a new fit for purpose stadium.
My thoughts on this are
1, where would they acquire such funding ? possibly from the WRU and some grants along with some council and private investment ??
2, once it’s built how would a small rugby club sustain the and service the ongoing upkeep of such a stadium ? Well it was mentioned that they were thinking of putting in an artificial pitch and opening it up to the public, I think this is where the council might come in to it, but more importantly if this ground is built it would be geographically perfect along with Ebbw Vale and Caerphilly to take the Dragons on the road around the region, they have already successfully held games at two of the venues.
The WRU would easily recoup any money given/spent on the new Pontypool stadium with the sale or redevelopment of the Whole of Rodney Parade.

I might be way way off the mark at this time as I am guessing, but it would be a very viable and workable option

The possibility of the WRU helping Pontypool with a new stadium are zero in my opinion. In fact they have a long history of conflict
including court battles which for all intents and purposes bankrupted the club. Fortunately they have a local business man in Peter Jeffreys who is willing to solely fund a new pitch and stadium and finacially assist the team to return to the premiership i.e top level of welsh club rugby which at best is semi-professional, and therefore will not be of sufficent size to host regional rugby. Club rugby is only played in front of a few hundred supporters. My understanding is indeed they have already turned down approaches to hold Dragons games at pontypool, even for low key or pre-season games. His wish is to remain at Pontypool park but is in conflict with the council about ground development and the fencing off of the ground to prevent ongoing vandalism of the ground. It centres around a over 100 year old covenent when the park was donated to the people of pontypool by the aristocratic Hanbury family, which stated that access to all areas of the park shall be available to all. The council take the view that a fencing of the rugby ground would contravene that convenant.

In summary in my opinion there is no prospect of the Dragons leaving RP for Pontypool. Such a same the erstwhile Mr Jeffreys is not not a county supporter? We need the miracle of such a person to emerge if we are to realise the dream of having our own purpose built stadium

I remember when they took a game to Ebbw Vale in February the Argus reported that the gate "was announced" as 4,052, which suggests they didn't believe it. The photo seems to bear this out.

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/sport/ ... _to_cheer/

My wife is a big rugby fan. In Ireland there are four provinces which are historical and not based on regional rugby. Whilst in GAA there is a fierce rivalry between Leitrim, Sligo Roscommon, Mayo and Galway for the Connacht title, when it comes to rugby Mrs Einstein will happily travel eighty miles to Galway and wave a flag which carries the name of all five county's.

As for regional rugby working in Wales, I believe there's as much chance of that working as a team called North London United, getting Spurs and Arsenal fans to support.

George Street-Bridge wrote:I remember when they took a game to Ebbw Vale in February the Argus reported that the gate "was announced" as 4,052, which suggests they didn't believe it. The photo seems to bear this out.

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/sport/ ... _to_cheer/

My recollection is the Dragons were still getting crowds of 4,000 + last season despite result wise it being there worst ever season.
Obviously they have aspirations given player recruitment they will be more successful over the next two years, when the crowds will inevitably increase. It wasn't too long ago when crowds or 11.000+ were in the ground especially when playing other Welsh regions.

I do believe however if results don't improve over the next two years ( current coach's tenure) and they don't start realising their income stream from development of the 'cabbage patch' area of RP then sadly their future may be in jeopardy.

Perhaps i'm in a minority on this forum, and am being naïve, but i would love to see a competitive professional rugby team and a sustainable EFL team playing in and representing my town.

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:

George Street-Bridge wrote:I remember when they took a game to Ebbw Vale in February the Argus reported that the gate "was announced" as 4,052, which suggests they didn't believe it. The photo seems to bear this out.

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/sport/ ... _to_cheer/

My recollection is the Dragons were still getting crowds of 4,000 + last season despite result wise it being there worst ever season.
Obviously they have aspirations given player recruitment they will be more successful over the next two years, when the crowds will inevitably increase. It wasn't too long ago when crowds or 11.000+ were in the ground especially when playing other Welsh regions.

I do believe however if results don't improve over the next two years ( current coach's tenure) and they don't start realising their income stream from development of the 'cabbage patch' area of RP then sadly their future may be in jeopardy.

Perhaps i'm in a minority on this forum, and am being naïve, but i would love to see a competitive professional rugby team and a sustainable EFL team playing in and representing my town.

I agree entirely with you. My point is that whatever they are called a rugby team playing at Rodney Parade will always be viewed as Newport.

Stan A. Einstein wrote:My wife is a big rugby fan. In Ireland there are four provinces which are historical and not based on regional rugby. Whilst in GAA there is a fierce rivalry between Leitrim, Sligo Roscommon, Mayo and Galway for the Connacht title, when it comes to rugby Mrs Einstein will happily travel eighty miles to Galway and wave a flag which carries the name of all five county's.

As for regional rugby working in Wales, I believe there's as much chance of that working as a team called North London United, getting Spurs and Arsenal fans to support.

Whilst agreeing with you in that regional rugby hasn't been enbraced by the majority of supporters in Wales, unlike provincial rugby in Ireland, i would still argue that if it wasn't for the creation of a small number of professional teams in Wales we wouldn't have been able to compete internationally, which is the main WRU remit. Admittedly not quite so successfully as Ireland presently.

This thread seems to be more about rugby now than the county. Of course our football clubs wellbeing is currently interlinked until such time as we realise the dream of the county owning their own fit for purpose stadium. Sadly I don't believe I will ever see that dream come true.

Yes Stan your point about any rugby team playing at RP being viewed as Newport will probably always be seen as such by the majority of Gwent rugby supporters. Which is why the possibility of the dragons leaving RP for another venue in Gwent would appear extremely unlikely.

Maybe of academic interest would anyone have any idea what % of County supporters who attend games come from Gwent (not including newport) compared to the Dragons? After all wasn't our original name Newport and Monmouth County?