This Is Real Welsh Rugby
As we enter the second month of the Premiership, we can be cautiously optimistic that our decision not to join the new Super Rygbi Cymru (SRC) development league was the correct one. So far we have seen good crowds at Sardis Road, season ticket sales are up on last year as are food and beverage sales and we have increased our sponsorship. The Club remains financially stable, a state which would have been jeopardised if we had joined the SRC.
It is worth reiterating that a four month period of inactivity in the SRC between December and April would have been financially suicidal for us whilst the inevitable fracture from our community, players, members and supporters that such a break would entail would be unacceptable – as would the loss of control over coach and player selection.
There are encouraging signs that the Premiership is becoming the primary product for those who value quality competitive play and tribal loyalties rooted in club and community heritage and most importantly, to have regular fixtures. We are already seeing a willingness of fans to travel to support their teams and to stay post game to socialise. There is a buzz around the various grounds and a feeling that something meaningful is building.
The WRU are unlikely to provide any tangible marketing support to the Premiership for a variety of reasons. We must be patient, but if anecdotal evidence across social media is an indicator, the Premiership is regularly recording 3 to 4 times more hits than the SRC. It will be interesting, if the WRU releases the information, to see how attendances develop (or not) in the SRC over the coming months. I suspect it will be difficult to maintain any attendance and spectator momentum for the reasons highlighted above.
Arguably the SRC teams are Clubs in name only, participating in an underfunded WRU franchise experiment with minimal media exposure. One has to doubt the wisdom of effectively handing operational and strategic control of your Club to the Regions given their questionable record of success managerially, financially and sportingly.
There are no guarantees that the SRC will succeed. In fact all empirical evidence seems to come to the same conclusion: development leagues are unviable without a commercial rationale and tend to be short lived. They endure until the participants and the governing body face the inescapable reality that a pure development model cannot succeed. Without a commercial rationale and potentially lacking any significant spectator, member or media engagement, it is difficult to see how the SRC will become what the WRU wants it to be, a production line of talent into the professional game.
The existing shortcomings in the Regional academy system, together with the inevitable pressure to prioritise selection for academy players, means that non-academy talent may struggle to get game time or an opportunity in the SRC. Unequivocally, they will get that opportunity at Pontypridd and in the Premiership.
In all of this, our objective at Pontypridd is to ensure that the Club endures as a vibrant and growing sporting and commercial entity where players can develop their skills and aspire to fully professional rugby. And we are deeply rooted in our community, and exist for our members and supporters.
We are highly optimistic that we are positioning Pontypridd RFC to regain its status as the leading Club in Wales as and when that opportunity presents itself. This is real Welsh rugby and we remain an integral part – as we were in the past, as we are now, and as we will be in the future.
Mark Rhydderch-Roberts
Executive Director
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