Dragons boss Dean Ryan has responded to proposals for his team to be scrapped for the betterment of Welsh rugby in a new report and insisted it was business as usual for the Gwent side.
The Professional Rugby Board, tasked with managing the pro game in Wales, commissioned the report from Oakwell Sports Advisory to assess the 'strategic options' available to move Welsh rugby forward. One of the recommendations is for the Dragons to cease to exist.
Another suggestion was that the previously failed Scarlets-Ospreys merger be revived. And the information has emerged just days before the Dragons face the Ospreys at the Swansea.com Stadium this weekend.
Inevitably, Ryan's pre-game press conference was dominated by the content of the explosive report. Here's what he had to say on the matter...
READ MORE: Bombshell plan to cut Welsh rugby region emerges as WRU make move
Q: Details from the report on Welsh rugby have been leaked - is that helpful at this point in time?
DR: I don’t think it’s the finest moment for wherever that’s come from. I’ve had to sit on here and avoid talking about single points for some time now. In the absence of any clear direction or a clear strategy I’m not surprised somebody somewhere will take something and put it front and centre of headlines.
I’ve heard it before, heard it many times, and heard other proposals before. I’ve also talked about the fact that the complexity of this problem isn’t sorted by somebody grabbing one headline and saying something. It’s another chapter where we have to play with that as the context in the background.
Q: As far as you're concerned, for the long-term future of the Dragons, is it business as usual?
DR: Absolutely. I met with David this morning and we gave every reassurance we’re heading in the same direction we’ve always been. This is not a surprise and it’s a report we’ve all seen some time ago.
As I said when you leave a vacuum and someone gets a headline, it becomes all the headlines. That doesn’t do justice to the number of things that are going on in PRB. It’s not a particularly great chapter in terms of wherever that came from.
Q: Would going down to three regions, reducing the player base, be to the detriment of Welsh rugby?
DR: I believe so. If you look at successful tier one and World Cup-winning sides, keeping the avenues open for a range of player development for people to experience then that’s invaluable. Everyone talks about models but the challenges Italy and Scotland face aren’t solved by restricted numbers.
Statistically World Cup-winning sides have a number of sides competing at the top level and a number of avenues for players coming through. In any discussions I’ve always been a big fan of that. If you look at a financial sheet it might look better with three but I don’t believe that would benefit the long-term future of rugby in Wales which is already facing challenges of how to develop players through to the competitive end of the game.
Q: Is it important for you, as someone who wants to sell tickets etc, that someone comes out and nips this in the bud?
DR: Aren’t we all weary of not having a strategy? I think that nips everything in the bud if someone gave a clear direction of travel and the direction Wales and the regions are going. As I said if you leave that in the open for a long period of time and nothing happens then we’re left with an environment where everyone speculates.
Q: Have you had to address this with the players?
DR: Yeah I think myself and David [Buttress] have been quite clear to the players and the staff about what’s happening within the PRB and the context that doesn’t get included in media reports.
Context is everything, information is everything. We could do without these things popping up on your phone at six o’clock in the evening but players are clear on the context of the report, the alternatives and where David’s energy is taking the club.
Q: We had 2019 but it’s almost a bit of wasted energy in a sense, if you have to deal with this again?
DR: I could write a chapter on wasted energy.
Q: Is there any context we should be made aware of before we go and write up the things you’ve said today?
DR: The context is that there are lots of suggestions in PRB but if you look at a headline then there is only one of them. There are lots of suggestions and none of them are new. Giving players the context... you just put one out as the headline then that becomes the dominant direction of travel.
That comes from... this isn’t weeks waiting for a strategy, it’s years. I understand what the media do and how it works. It’s the fault of the PRB and the governing body [that it’s taken so long] to arrive at a strategy to move forward. But the context is that it’s one part of a report and it’s not fully across the conversations that are in PRB.
Therefore, it’s shaped thinking without context.
Q: You’ve talked about wasted energy and a lack of strategy – is it time for the regions to come together to send a clear message that this isn’t acceptable?
DR: I don’t think anybody is in any doubt that this is unacceptable. Please tell me that. Are we this far in that people think where we are is acceptable? Because I can’t believe that.
It’s for the four regions and the governing body to come up with an integrated strategy, not for people to come up with things in isolation. That’s clearly causing some problems [because] they haven’t be able to arrive at that. Is that acceptable? No it’s not. It’s not acceptable to carry on in the way that we are.
Let’s hope... let’s keep our fingers crossed that we are moving closer to something.
Q: As someone who has worked in other countries, are you still scratching your head that this is the state of play?
DR: I’m sometimes scratching my head at the amount of time that it’s gone on. Every country goes into a different phase, having lived through England, some of it wasn’t particularly pleasant and it’s not necessarily the perfect model either.
At some point, we have to reach a point where we’re trying to work forward. The frustration at us not arriving at a collective integrated strategy is that we can’t move forward. We just feel like we’re sitting in the same space, not knowing how to move forward.
Sometimes, comparisons with other countries can be helpful, to look at different models. If this is Wales’ time to go through a period, it has to get to a point where everyone is working towards something. That’s where most of the frustration sits, how long it’s gone on.
It’s certainly not acceptable and at some stage we have to reach a moment where we decide how it’s going to move forward for the next 10 years.
Q: Given what you’ve alluded to there, are you still in the dark about budgets for next year?
DR: We’re in May/June and we’ve still not got real clarity. That is very much integrated into a strategy. We’ve got to break out of this cycle of what we’re doing because the current model doesn’t work.
