It's an interesting tactic. As much as it pains me to say, cutting the Rebels has definitely worked in the short term. The longer term effects will be more difficult to measure and attribute. But Scotland make it work well with two teams, I don't see why Wales can't. Obviously absolutely gutting for whatever two get cut though, commiserations to their fans, it's not pleasant*.
It might be necessary for Wales, but I also don't think they're addressing the key issues they have - they are such an incredibly inefficient operation economically. Annual revenue for the WRU is around £100m, close to twice what RA brings in per year.
RA would be laughing if they could bring in that money each year!
Surely that means they can run a Glasgow Warriors pretty neatly. 6N money split between two teams means they can be poaching every Sione and Mack with a Welsh granny soon.
I don't think they can run anything particularly neatly to be honest. They have massive issues with the community game trying to run the professional setups and making a mess of things. They might try to go looking for them, but arguably it was more likely when they had 4 teams to fill and they haven't done much of it, whether that's down to intent or ability I'm not sure.
Tbf, Scotland are at a massive advantage by having a large global diaspora, absolutely no concerns in selecting from anywhere, and England and France nearby with deep squads / academies (essentially paying for the development and maintenance of Scottish qualified players).
Yeah Scotland has twice the global diaspora as Wales, guess that roughly correlates to their population sizes in the 20th century.
I think it's more like 10x
| Nation | Estimated Diaspora Population | Key Destinations |
|---|---|---|
| Scotland | 28–40 million (some estimates go up to 80 million) | USA, Canada, Australia, England, New Zealand, Argentina |
| Wales | ~1.8 million (more conservative estimates) | USA (especially Pennsylvania), Australia, England, Patagonia (Argentina) |
