Scarlets are a region

Anything regional, again there are limits

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Wally
Posts: 262
Joined: 28 Feb 2005 23:17
Location: Caldicot, Monmouthshire

Scarlets are a region

Post by Wally »

well, its taken them a time but now the scartlets have followed the ospreys in just wanting to be know as the scarlets instead of llanelli scarlets.

all we need now is the blues and the dragons to do the same things may start looking up as regards to taking interest in regional rugby.


interesting comments here from Dr. JPR too.............

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/sport/ ... ort___JPR/
Positive Mental Village Attitude.

C'Mon Ebbw

You can take the Wal out Of Ebbw but you can't take the Ebbw out of the Wal.
String
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Location: Cayman Islands
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Post by String »

They're a region ?!

The team called Llanelli that for decades has been known as the scarlets is now going to be known as the scarlets.

Call me cynical but that's not exactly a massive chance to embrace the masses.
Dil
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Joined: 28 Feb 2005 22:48
Location: By Yer

Post by Dil »

Maybe Cardiff should now be known as "The Pinks", nice kit .... NOT.
dyn y dur
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Joined: 12 Oct 2006 19:13

Post by dyn y dur »

I see The Dragons have followed suit after both the Neath/Swansea "Ospreys" and now the Llanelli "Scarlets" have dropped their longer names.

A spokesman at the "Region" has allegedly said The "Newport Gwent Dragons" will be dropping the "Gwent Dragons" portion and from now on will be called simply "Newport".

The spokesman apparantly went on to say:
"We feel this name change further enhances our initial long term aims to be an exclusive super club and promotes the values we hold dear namely our arrogance and selfish narrow minded parochialism".
:wink:
Malpas69
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Location: Ebbw Vale exile living in N*****t

Post by Malpas69 »

Good article in today's Western Mail:-

Delme Parfitt believes the time has come for radical surgery in order to safeguard the future of the Dragons. Amid all the guff spouted about waiting for the Dragons’ new signings to ‘gel’ in the wake of their horrendous 50-6 tuning at the hands of Munster on Sunday, it took a former Irish international to cut to the chase.

The gist of Reggie Corrigan’s post-match assessment was thus...

“The Dragons were awful, their basic skill levels were dreadful and they didn’t look as though they could pass the ball from one man to the next.” Powerful, damning sound-bites, but the concluding remark will have hit home even more.

Munster, Corrigan insisted, shouldn’t take too much out of the win because of the woeful standard of the opposition. And so it has come to this. Just three matches into the new season, we have a Welsh region being not so much criticised by a hugely respected pundit, as ridiculed. We should not be at all surprised that region is the Dragons, but we should now be starting to wonder just how long this apology for an elite rugby set-up can be allowed to continue in its present state.

In a word, it is a mess. The ludicrous treble-barreled name remains a hideous giveaway of a confused identity. Men of Gwent one minute, Newport the next, to the point where little more than 5,000 can be bothered to go through the gates to watch a plumb East versus West derby with the Scarlets. Even many of those who did probably had different ideas as to who or what they were actually there to support. Five years into its excruciating existence, the region has still to decide what it is, never mind what it would like to be.

Therefore, heaven help the rest of us. And yet the age-old bore that is the squabble between Black and Amber diehards and Gwent valley watchers who feel disenfranchised, does not begin to account for nights like those at Musgrave Park. Far more relevant, first and foremost, is the spiralling deterioration in the quality of the Dragons squad. The hailing of the arrival of a cavalry of Kiwis that took place in some parts of the county during the summer is looking more like a contemporary version of the Emperor’s New Clothes with every passing week.

Former Scarlets coach Phil Davies was the one who brought up the dreaded g-word – gel that is – when asked on Scrum V to explain the ineptness of the Dragons. But rather than needing time to gel – which no team can ever be afforded in the competitive world of modern professional sport – the bottom line is that the squad is acutely undercooked to deal with assignments like taking on Munster on their own partisan patch.

It has lost Gareth Cooper, Colin Charvis, Ceri Sweeney, Michael Owen and Percy Montgomery in the last few years and whether you view any of them as world-beaters is besides the point. The crux of the matter is that taking the place of those proven international players are New Zealanders Tom Willis, James Arlidge, Grant Webb, and Aussie Rory Sidey, all of whom were snapped up on a loudly trumpeted tour of the southern hemisphere during the close season.

Unfortunately, on the evidence so far, it appears Paul Turner has swapped Audis for Ford Fiestas. I accept we may yet see an improvement and I accept it is still early, but the new boys from afar look little better than journeymen to me, just like Marc Stcherbina, Tal Selley and Shaun Connor who joined from the Blues and Ospreys respectively. Sidey has apparently already stated his desire to qualify for Wales, but these are not the days of Jason Jones-Hughes. It takes more than a Sydney accent to get into our national side now.

Given the damp squib of the in-comers up to now, it would be natural to question the judgement of Turner. As head coach he will acknowledge that he has to take responsibility and he will be hurting right now more than anyone because he is as proud a Gwent rugby man as you could wish to meet. Turner has, at times, viewed the regeneration of the Dragons as his own personal crusade.

But you have to question whether swimming against the tide of a board that won’t, or can’t, spend has taken its toll on a man held in high regard by the majority. Maybe the Dragons players need to hear a different voice now, I don’t honestly know. What I do know is that even if Warren Gatland took over at Rodney Parade at present, fortunes may improve slightly but there would be no long-term transformation.

The triumph of coaches of Gatland’s ilk is to eke out every last drop from what is at their disposal. But they are not miracle workers. Turner’s summer expedition Down Under excited long-suffering fans of the region but, as yet, watching the end result has been a bit like going on holiday and discovering that your hotel room is nowhere near as nice as you’d imagined.

The bottom line is that if you go shopping in the West End and you want quality you need money, real money. That is something Turner, just like his counterpart Dai Young at the Blues, does not have, and yet if the Arms Park side are also being found out to a degree by trying to achieve success on the cheap, in people like Xavier Rush and Ben Blair they have players Turner would kill for.

And at least there is a future of sorts at the Blues, with the impending move to ground share with Cardiff City representing something a new dawn. By contrast all the fuss about the supposed new stadium that was meant to drag Rodney Parade out of the 1960s appears to have died a death. We’re now hearing that the credit crunch is likely to put the whole thing on hold. New stadium proposals are ten a penny, the challenge is to get them past the artist’s impression stage – and why should there be any confidence in that happening in Newport?

Consequently, the entire environment the Dragons operate out of is set to remain wholly unsuitable not only for attracting a new family-orientated support base but also top players who want a grand arena to showcase their wares, not a tin shack. Which brings us to the final, and arguably most important question: Who will lead this outfit out of the doldrums?
The Welsh Rugby Union, who still have a 50 per cent stake in it, must be deeply concerned.

Thrashings like the carnage at Musgrave Park make a mockery of their plans for a fifth region because they prove we aren’t even properly sustaining the four we already have. The Dragons might be grateful that David Moffett is no longer with us. Like him or loath him, Moffett would have thought nothing of blowing through the whole sorry Rodney shambles like an arctic gale, by seizing their franchise and transferring it to North Wales.

Granted, such a straight swap is unrealistic and will not happen. But then maybe Gwent followers who are so disdainful of the North Wales scenario are part of the problem. Too many heads are in the sand in that corner of South East Wales apparently believing they have a divine right to elite representation. They don’t. And unless those in charge of the Dragons begin to provide more dynamic leadership then they deserve everything that comes their way.
Crime in multi-storey car parks - that is just wrong on so many different levels!!
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