Isn't the RFU's stated rationale to allow ensure access to players? They could achieve this with their England based players by paying PRL for access.
By creating a pool of players who can only play for one of the four Welsh regions, I suppose they have saved the regions some money and there must be a benefit to the increased familiarity between players. Is this enough to compensate for the effect that we are seeing, or are you / the WRU playing a longer game with the payoff yet to come?
But it doesn’t benefit the Welsh game if all of the international standard players they’re bringing back into Wales become mediocre players when they arrive there. In that sense it means that the regions likely aren’t getting their money’s worth and the international side is actively worsening the playing ability of its team.
England's choice to only pick England players is mainly for the increased time in camp and therefore better chances with the national team. Like you said Wales could pay for access to English based players, Pat Lam even said so recently. However unlike England, IMO Wales' main focus of the 60 cap rule is to keep the better players at the Welsh regions not necessarily for the increased amount of access to the national team. Apart from recently Scarlets, although that's gone downhill, the regions have been average/poor for a number of years and that's done to the squads just not being good enough. These players coming back are improving the regions squads and pushing out some of that deadwood that probably aren't up to the standard of pro rugby but there's no better other options in Wales. The regions get money for each player that get's called up for Wales, so Dragons are hoping that Rowlands get's called up as that's more slice of the budget for them next season. Even a mediocre Jonah Holmes is a lot better option than what most of the regions squads have now, when you get to 3rd choice of some positions there's a massive downfall in quality. Is that strategy going to work long term? Not sure, but short term I'm happy with the players that are coming back to play in the home regions so far and the regions have stronger squads as a result. National team is a bit of a **** show but I don't think you can solely blame this.
I do think some English fans don't realise how crap some of the Welsh regions squads are sometimes, especially when there's a Wales camp.
