Market as huge as South be a positive – Phillips
consideration given to going with a straight home and away 14-team league? A: There just aren’t enough weekends for that. You wouldn’t be able to fit in 26 regular season matches and then there are the play-offs to consider as well.
There’s a lesson to be learned from the Champions League in football. The way they have managed to grow and enhance that competition is through leagues and then knock out stages.
The conference system also allows for flexibility in terms of the number of teams involved.
We have always said we would like to develop the competition and going to conferences allows us to do that.
The challenges will obviously be the bedding-in period and the logistics in terms of travelling. South Africa is quite a long way to go and it’s quite expensive. But our teams will only have to go out there once a year. If they have away games against both the Kings and the Cheetahs, they will be back to back matches and they have a little mini tour which will be something else new and exciting. If we can make this work, which I’m sure we can, it’s a real step forward for the tournament. Q: So you are pretty confident the new structure will prove a success and that Welsh fans will buy into it? A: I know the attendances will go up, from the work that has gone on with season tickets. There has been a lot of buzz about the competition just in the last couple of days and I would like to think it’s a got a really positive future.
You’ve got the South African teams coming over and there’s a lot of other interesting developments as well, with a number of new coaches at the helm. You have got Dave Rennie at Glasgow, Richard Cockerill at Edinburgh, Kieran Keane at Connacht, Michael Bradley in Zebre and Bernard Jackman at the Dragons.
I think some of the teams that have struggled a bit of late are going to be more competitive. I don’t think there will be any easy games.
You’ve got all the derbies in there and the play-offs at the end of the season. I just think it’s going to be more compelling as a product. Q: You mention derby matches there. How important was it to retain home and away derbies for the Welsh teams amid the new structure? A: People talk about who is the first name on the team-sheet. Well, keeping the derbies was the first thing set in stone from our point of view. It was never an option to reduce them in number. They are a pivotal part of the season and key dates in the calendar. Q: Wales has never hosted the play-off final in this competition. Would you be interested in staging the final of the new PRO14 at the Principality Stadium? A: It’s certainly something we’d like to do in the future. But I don’t think we can do it this season because we have already got concerts arranged. I know people will say it’s a rugby stadium first and foremost, but it’s a multi-purpose facility and concerts bring in much needed revenue for the game in Wales. We tend to have a lot of concerts at that time of year, so it’s a case of trying to get the balance between the two. As it stands, May 2019 would be the earliest we could stage the final, but it’s something we are always looking at.