By Jake Harvey

With a recent heavy decline in attendance figures and a mass amount of Welsh talent leaving their Welsh region to play elsewhere brings the question, what can be done to save Welsh rugby?

Let’s start at the beginning. In 2003, Rugby turned professional in Wales and to do this 5 Regions were made out of Welsh clubs joining together. Newport, Ebbw Vale and Gwent created the Dragons, Swansea and Neath created the Ospreys, Llanelli RFC became the Scarlets, Pontypridd and Bridgend came up with the Celtic Warriors and Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan would be represented by the Cardiff Blues.

The introduction of this new setup of Rugby did, as expected, cause controversy in Wales. Clubs people had supported their whole lives would now have a ‘Second team’ status. This was never going to go down well, but was described as the only way to make Rugby professional in Wales.

The 2003/2004 season saw these 5 teams play for the first time. The Scarlets won the league and got to the last 8 of the Heineken Cup, the Ospreys finished 5th and failed to qualify from the Pool stages of the Heineken Cup, the Blues finished 6th and also failed to qualify from the Pools of the Heineken, the Dragons did well and finished 3rd but were placed bottom of their pool and, well, the Celtic Warriors went bust after their first season although they finished 4th in the league and 2nd in their Heineken Cup pool.

Now there were four professional Rugby sides in Wales. They did well for years where the Ospreys earned some silverware and the Blues made the Heineken Cup Semi-Final in 2009 and won the Amlin Challenge Cup in 2010, the first European competition to be won by a Welsh team.

Regardless of the success on the pitch, off the pitch has recently become a difficult story. The Scarlets, the Blues and the Ospreys have all since moved to better and bigger Stadiums whether they had their fans blessing or not. The Cardiff Blues and the Ospreys both ground share with their Cities football sides at 20+ thousand seated stadiums and the Scarlets knocked down the iconic Stradey Park and built a new stadium called ‘Parc Y Scarlets’. Both the Ospreys and the Blues are yet to sell out their new home and both average an attendance of about 7 or 8 thousand.

The Blues pay a reported £250,000 a season to play at the Cardiff City Stadium and recent attendance figures do not look good, the Cardiff based side played host to the Harlequins in the LV Cup in February and had a shocking attendance of just 2,093 in a Stadium that can hold 27,000 people. The fans of the Blues rushed to set up Facebook pages and online petitions to campaign to get the Cardiff Blues back at the Arms Park. The blues listened and decided to play two games at the Arms Park with an 8,000 and a 9,000 capacity. Both games sold out. The Blues board decided that they would go back to the Cardiff City Stadium to play the two Welsh derbies against the Scarlets and the Ospreys. The Blues played the Scarlets on Saturday night in front of just 8,000 people.

Wales’ biggest stars have either left or leaving their regional sides and Regional Rugby in Wales does not look like an attractive product.

Follow Jake on Twitter @jakeharves