Wales head coach Wayne Pivac suggested he was open-minded when it came to Welsh rugby’s crunch decision to slash a region.
The game in Wales was embroiled in its latest round of chaos recently when proposals to axe a region for the betterment of the sport at large emerged. Those running the game have since moved to dampen the prospect of that scenario ever coming to pass and insist it was one of a number of proposals under consideration.
The Dragons, who were thrown into the firing line as front-runners to be axed, have vociferously opposed the suggestion. One of the points made by their head coach Dean Ryan was that a reduction in the player pool would harm the prospects of the national team in the long run.
Read more: Alun Wyn Jones slams plan to cut Welsh region
But Pivac did not rush to throw his support behind the status quo.
He explained: “It depends on how you rate the player pool and how many players you think are capable of playing international rugby. Are we paying players that aren’t really at that level? So there’s a lot of factors to take into account.
“You could also say that if you reduce the number of teams, like Scotland, you might have a couple of competitive teams. There’s an argument both ways, I think.”
He added: “The big thing for us, if you look at the teams that have been dominant in the club scene, your Saracens, your Crusaders, your Leinsters, and you look at their national teams and they are all aligned, so I think it is very important we get that alignment. It certainly helps the national team.
“We have probably been in silos for a long, long time. Warren [Gatland] used to talk to me about that sort of thing and I don’t think a lot has changed in the eight years I have been here, so the sooner we can get full alignment and everybody working for the common good then I think that has got to be a positive not only for the national team but also for the clubs.
“I know there are a lot of people who have got their heads down at the moment and are trying to get the best possible solution for everybody going forward in Welsh rugby.”
Welsh rugby’s power brokers are yet to make their plans for the future public, although it does appear that a reduction in teams, at least for now, is off the table.
But Pivac did acknowledge that change has to come, whatever that looks like.
“There are some people in the game in Wales that know there needs to be some change, what that change is exactly time will tell, or if it remains exactly the way it is and somehow we find some more funding.”
He did not believe that the furore would impact on his players when they head to South Africa to face the world champions this summer.
