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New salary cap agreed as WRU sign six-year deal

(Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the country’s four regions have agreed to a new financial package aimed at enabling sustainability and growth over the next six years.

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The Professional Rugby Board (PRB) confirmed on Thursday that it has signed a new long-form Professional Rugby Agreement (PRA) with all parties, including the WRU, Cardiff Rugby, the Dragons, the Ospreys, and the Scarlets, bound by its terms until 2029.

The new PRA will provide a financial framework that is made up of new funding from the WRU and club shareholders to create a sustainable platform for progress. It will also provide financial predictability for the professional game in Wales, with homegrown player development being a key objective for all parties.

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PRB chair Malcolm Wall said, “It is no exaggeration to say a great deal of work, time and effort has gone into establishing an agreement all parties can be happy with and which is designed to achieve the very best results for Welsh professional rugby from the resources available to us.”

The new PRA will introduce salary caps from the 2023/24 season, with two types of contracts on offer – fixed contracts and those with both a fixed and variable element linked to appearances and performances. All contracts will be held by a central clearing house to monitor spending, ensure contract compliance, and effect a new player-loan system across clubs.

Contracts for players of national interest will be agreed by the club and the WRU Performance Director, while all clubs are committed to a minimum spend on player academies. Additionally, all clubs will be subject to regular audits of squad expenditures, contracts, business plans, and academy performance.

The clubs have also committed to centralising aspects of their commercial operations, with work already in process in this area. Welsh Rugby Players Association CEO Gareth Lewis has welcomed the agreement, stating, “The cooperation between the WRU, our professional clubs and the WRPA has been a vitally important part of this process and we will continue to work together for the future benefit of Welsh rugby.”

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The PRB comprises representatives from each of the five professional entities in Welsh rugby, including four regional representatives, acting WRU CEO Nigel Walker, WRU finance director Tim Moss, and two independent members – Malcolm Wall, as chair, and Marianne Økland.

WRU CEO Nigel Walker said, “Our objective has been to achieve a sustainable future for our four professional sides and for Wales, and credit must go to all involved now this has been achieved. We now have a structure which will provide a backdrop of stability from which we can build.”

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J
JW 28 minutes ago
How law changes are speeding up the game - but the scrum lags behind

Very good, now we are getting somewhere (though you still didn't answer the question but as you're a South African I think we can all assume what the answer would be if you did lol)! Now let me ask you another question, and once you've answered that to yourself, you can ask yourself a followup question, to witch I'm intrigued to know the answer.


Well maybe more than a couple of questions, just to be clear. What exactly did this penalty stop you from doing the the first time that you want to try again? What was this offence that stopped you doing it? Then ask yourself how often would this occur in the game. Now, thinking about the regularity of it and compare it to how it was/would be used throughout the rest of the game (in cases other than the example you gave/didn't give for some unknown reason).


What sort of balance did you find?


Now, we don't want to complicate things further by bringing into the discussion points Bull raised like 'entirety' or 'replaced with a ruck', so instead I'll agree that if we use this article as a trigger to expanding our opinions/thoughts, why not allow a scrum to be reset if that is what they(you) want? Stopping the clock for it greatly removes the need to stop 5 minutes of scrum feeds happening. Fixing the law interpretations (not incorrectly rewarding the dominant team) and reducing the amount of offences that result in a penalty would greatly reduce the amount of repeat scrums in the first place. And now that refs a card happy, when a penalty offence is committed it's going to be far more likely it results in the loss of a player, then the loss of scrums completely and instead having a 15 on 13 advantage for the scrum dominant team to then run their opposition ragged. So why not take the scrum again (maybe you've already asked yourself that question by now)?


It will kind be like a Power Play in Hockey. Your outlook here is kind of going to depend on your understanding of what removing repeat scrums was put in place for, but I'm happy the need for it is gone in a new world order. As I've said on every discussion on this topic, scrums are great, it is just what they result in that hasn't been. Remove the real problem and scrum all you like. The All Blacks will love zapping that energy out of teams.

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