Hi all,
I hope you don't mind me intruding here. I'm working on a fan engagement project within the Welsh regions.
What do you think are the major issues? How do you think they could do better? Some have suggested more online stuff, eg. an app or website. What are your thoughts?
From the outside - it'd appear to be an issue of people brought up in the club scene identifying with the regions.
Over here, we've had 4 provinces since forever (in the context of this discussion). There was long established competition between the provinces in rugby and other sports (like the Railway cup). They were ideally distributed geographically and in terms of population distribution as good as could be realistically hoped for with 4 of the 5 largest towns in Ireland in different provinces. Thus, when the IRFU went to use the provinces as the basis for professional units - it was a no brainer. There was no conflict in crossing club/province boundaries, there was instant association from the support base and it was always solid.
Conversely, in Wales, there was rows and arguments before the regions even formed. Some wanted superclubs, others wanted amalgamations, yet others didn't want it at all. Geographically, the distribution is extremely poor - but that is not helped by the population concentration of Wales. Even given that - or maybe especially given that - the reach out of the regions to their base has been extremely poor.
Why are Ospreys playing in Liberty stadium when its empty? They went to Bridgend a couple of weeks ago - they should be rotating matches around all the big clubs in their catchment and getting people involved, not playing in their empty ivory tower. Same with the Blues. To a lesser extent the Scarlets and Dragons are already in the undisputed centre of their catchments.
But then, I guess, really, the bottom line is the Welsh are poor at turning out for anything outside of internationals. They talk about rugby being the national game, but that quite clearly is a load of bull. Soccer is the most popular national game. Compare and contrast the crowds for Newport, Cardiff and Swansea in soccer to the crowds in the Pro14.
If I were in charge of a region, I'd be playing
all my games around the club grounds until I was pretty much selling games out. Parents will take kids to the local pitch to watch the pros when they wouldn't take them way down the road for the same game. Anything else is likely embroidery. Its not about having loads of big names, one or two established internationals would do, success helps, but its mostly beyond the directors' control. Accessibility is key for me for building the roots from which the whole thing can grow.
edit: Accessibility is an easily achievable objective that will improve things. It doesn't need millions of pounds and it doesn't rely on the stars aligning for success.