... and the number of pro sides has to be reduced
...MCNICHOLL believes the number of Welsh regions must be halved in order for them to properly compete in the URC again.
The Crusaders full-back spent eight seasons with the Scarlets before moving back to New Zealand earlier this year.
But while he tasted league glory in his first season in 2016/17, he left the region in March with Dwayne Peel’s side struggling at the bottom of the table.
The Scarlets are currently 14th out of 16 teams, one place ahead of the Dragons and two behind Cardiff Rugby.
The Ospreys are the most successful Welsh side this season as they sit in 10th, but Mcnicholl says a reduction to two regions may need to happen if their league fortunes are to improve.
”Every year from [2017/18], the Scarlets have just sort of gone downhill since then,” he said.
“We went from first and second down to fifth, sixth and I think we’re 11th now.”
Asked for the reasons for the decline, he added: “Budget is one. It’s not a surprise that the team with the highest budget normally wins the league over there.
“Our budget has dropped since I joined by I think half, at least. Because of that, all the middle players have gone elsewhere and they’ve only kept a couple of really good players and then there’s just the new talent that’s coming through.
”It hasn’t really worked out for them that well. They’ve probably got too many teams in Wales, I’d say they probably need to go down to about two teams because there is not enough talent for four teams to compete in the competition that they are in.
“They can compete against each other and they can compete against some of the Italian teams, but other than that, the South Africans are there now and the Irish have an unbelievable product line of players.
“[The Welsh teams] definitely can’t compete against the Irish teams at the minute.”
Comparing the Irish production line to Wales’, Mcnicholl continued: “We would play the Irish sides’ C teams [at Scarlets] and be like ‘Oh yes, that’s a third string Leinster side, we’re going to put 40 on them, we’re going to win this week’ and then they would go and put 40 on us and we’d be like ‘How the hell has that happened?’
“Then six months later you’re looking at Hugo Keenan and Caelan Doris tearing it up for Ireland and they were the boys that were in the third team six months ago. They just have an unbelievable product line.”