So George North is leaving The Scarlets, for one of the hot-beds of “super-
organised” English Home Counties’ rugby; but the seeds for his departure were
organised” English Home Counties’ rugby; but the seeds for his departure were
sown long before he’d even played his first senior game.
In 2010 The Scarlets’ Finance Committee contrived a “paper exercise” which temporarily wiped certain types of debt off their balance sheet for that year, and around about the same time, Carmarthenshire County Council (CCC) gave the Region an interest holiday on the £2.5m that CCC are owed for the building of the Parc y Scarlets.
These were only ever going to be stop-gap interim measures; but during that time The Scarlets and most of the Welsh regions have failed to solve the dire match-attendance problem. On a good day, The Scarlets can expect an attendance of 6,500; but George will regularly be playing in front of home crowds of over 15,000 when he starts at Northampton.
With the economy now even worse for EVERYONE than it was three years ago, the CCC cannot justify or afford to repeat the same generosity towards The Scarlets; and the easiest place for clubs to cut outgoings is by slashing wage bills. The agreed salary cap of £3.5m for the regions next season is not going to be relevant for the Scarlets – and what is the point of a cash-strapped club paying over £100k a year for a top player who will be unavailable for so much of the season, due to international or Lions duty?
“Gatland’s Law” of 2008 (that Welsh international players would by picked exclusively from Welsh clubs) – was ridiculous back in 2008 and led to the premature ending of the international careers of players such as Dwayne Peel. But without sorting out WRU central-player-contracts for regular international players and the regional match attendance problems, “Gatland’s Law” is now all but dead.