Scarlets and Blues must change name and colours for the good of regional rugby.

First topic message reminder :

I am not sure what this magical plan from the WRU is or if there will be an extra regional or a reshuffle, but I think that the cheapest, easiest and most important thing right now is for the Blues and Scarlets to lose their club identity. They are meant to be regions, not clubs. Everyone is slagging off the Blues at the moment, but the Scarlets are even worse. The Scarlets was the alternative name for Llanelli RFC since time began. Their jerseys look almost the same as they did when it was pre 2003 Llanelli, so what has really changed?

Glas a du wrote:

The property owned is worth less than last year.

Of course it is! It's called 'depreciation' you claim it against tax.

I'm not an accountant but I believe it is standard accounting practice to decrease the value of the buisness premise year on year and that this has no actual conection to what the true real estate value of any property is worth, as I say I'm no expert on acccounts, merely a vague memory from something done in college many years ago.

Maybe there is someone reading this that can actually translate it in to plain English.

To use an extreme comparison all the press were writing Tesco off as in dire trouble a few months ago yet the end off year results show 3.5 billion profits with more overseas profits than any of the so called competitors that are on the up made in total.

In truth I believe very few people truly understand the gobbledygook spouted by most accountants.
What I do understand is the Scarlets costs are reducing each year, the gate is increasing every year and the other earning seem to be growing also with the secondary uses of the Stadium, inc. having a Premiership Football club now renting the stadium for its reserve games since 2011.

I give the Scarlets 2 years before they go into administration unless they mine for gold, I would be pretty pee'ed off if I was a rate payer to CCC, lending £2.4M to a high risk business and deferring interest for 3 years. CCC are likely to lose all the £2.4M and the interest. The interest at say 5% over 3 years at compound interest will be around £400k, have the Scarlets ignored this CCC interest until the 2014 in their accounts?

I wish the Scarlets a lot of luck but this is not the first time they find themselves in a mess.

alun, you appear to be misreading, the debts are reducing, hardly a mess.

CCC know how important the Scarlets are to the area, they aren't going to want anything bad to happen to them.

Lets hope they do go under. Its what they deserve

And here we go, the anti region brigade are now all gathered together. Charming.

Think I'll step out now while they blatantly ignore all facts in front of them and just spout out the same ill informed rubbish. Delightful.

What I read in there isn't that debts are reducing but that loses are. Debts will keep increasing until they start to break even (hoped for next year). Also CCC haven't deferred the interest, they've deferred the payments. That means that the Scarlets don't have to worry about paying that debt off yet but the interest keeps accruing so the CCC don't actually lose any money (the bank did the same thing for my parents and their mortgage during the miners strike).

IF the Scarlets break even next year AND carry on that improvement into making a profit then they will be in a much better position. And also be seen as more secure to the people they owe money to.

I'm certainly no expert so please someone correct any mistakes I've made.

Steffan wrote:Lets hope they do go under. Its what they deserve

Do you feel the same about the Blues, Dragons and Ospreys or is it just the Scarlets that you have a particular want to see fold?

Scarlets will never go down the pan. WRU will bail them out probably. Why change the habbit of a lifetime.

Out of interest if/when the Valleys team are formed, will people be looking for the first slip up they make in order to call for their demise, or moan perfusely about them?

I really can't understand the hatred that seems to be aimed at the Scarlets, in particular, and the other regions. We are all trying to pull in the right direction, and it appears to be working with the regions producing the talent, and that is what they were meant to be doing. Also they are improving their results as individual entities, which is surely a bonus. At the moment they are struggling financially, however there are very few professional sports teams that are not.

Id never wish ill on any region. The Superclubs we have now though can go to hell

Steffan wrote:Id never wish ill on any region. The Superclubs we have now though can go to hell

I understand where your coming from. But honestly the Scarlets are a region. I can say that hand on heart as I am from within the region. I am not from Llanelli, or Carmarthenshire. The Scarlets have been touring the region this week visiting rugby clubs around the region etc putting on training roadshows etc. Maybe it does not seem like it from the outside but it really is a region.

And from what I can gather talking to other folk the Ospreys and Dragons are doing the same sort of things too.

rugbydreamer wrote:And here we go, the anti region brigade are now all gathered together. Charming.

Think I'll step out now while they blatantly ignore all facts in front of them and just spout out the same ill informed rubbish. Delightful.

Hope you're not including me in this generalisation! I'm totally pro-regional rugby, but we haven't achieved it yet. It has to find a way of living within its means or sooner rather than later it will die.

The WRU has conceded that radical change is necessary and it's interesting to speculate on what they have planned.

Casartelli - If the Scarlets were called WEST, would you still have the same dislike for them?

If people in the West Wales are happy with the Scarlets then what's the problem? It's not like in some of the other regions where there are clear issues about representation.

A guy I work with is from near Newtown in mid-Wales and his brother plays for a team back home. He's been down to the Scarlets to play in some games before Scarlets games. Seem to be getting involved with mid Wales teams they're supposed to cover.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Casartelli - If the Scarlets were called WEST, would you still have the same dislike for them?

I don't dislike them. I would have loved to see them develop into a dominant European side, same as I would the other Welsh teams (okay, to be 100% truthful I'm not that bothered about Newport Gwent Dragons) but I don't see it ever happening with the current structure - it's had a decade and achieved little other than mounting debts and financial madness (the soccer stadium lunacy and deferred interest borrowing etc.). The WRU has acknowledged change is required.

The point though of regionalisation should be to make a fresh start. Im not just blaming Llanelli for this but...come on...'Scarlets'??? Like theyve never been called that before. Im sure people in Valleys would be happy with a team called Pontypridd...but thats not what its about. Its not about Ponty or Llanelli or anyone. Its about fresh starts and old ties cut for the good of Welsh rugby

But Llanelli were almost like a regional team before anyway. Isn't it always talked about that the Irish provinces work because they've been around for ages? So have the Scarlets and if those in their region are happy why not carry on? Baby and bath water springs to mind

Steffan wrote:The point though of regionalisation should be to make a fresh start. Im not just blaming Llanelli for this but...come on...'Scarlets'??? Like theyve never been called that before. Im sure people in Valleys would be happy with a team called Pontypridd...but thats not what its about. Its not about Ponty or Llanelli or anyone. Its about fresh starts and old ties cut for the good of Welsh rugby

I am trying to see your arguement here boss. You want to see 'regions', sides that will actually represent the people of a region of the country. I can totally understand that. Your problem seems to lie with what they are called. Is that pretty much it. If the Scarlets were called West Wales Oranges, and played in a home kit of Orange, and an away kit of Lime Green, they would still be folowed by their supporters, as the supporters come from the region itself, and not just on town.

I think this is going to be one of those going round in circles arguments.

-They are not a region because they are called the Scarlets
*Llanelli were a region pre-regionalism
-Exactly Llanelli RFC, so that means they are a superclub, not a region
*But they are supported by the people of the region
-So why are they called Scarlets, after the old nickname of Llanelli

etc etc etc.

I think this is the time for me to do my Dragons Den impression, thannk you for your pitch boys, but I'm out.

As iv said before id have 3 regions down south 'East, Central and West' with the plans to start one up North eventually and a really strong 10 team Premiership played in the summer. I know people will have arguements against this but thats just my 2p worth

I reckon, that if there was a 'West Wales' team, perceived as a small step down from the multiple Grand Slam winning national team, as opposed to a small step up from the Llanelli/Scarlets premiership team, that they would easily pull in 20k+ crowds for big European games.

They could take games to the Liberty or even the Millennium and would attract more people from down west as well as floating supporters from all over Wales. Same as if we had South and East teams too.

Even diehard Llanelli fans would fancy going to watch them if the rugby was good and there was a policy of developing local players brought up through west Wales clubs.

...although I do appear to be finding common ground with Steffan, which is rather alarming...

Casartelli wrote:...although I do appear to be finding common ground with Steffan, which is rather alarming...

Likewise

Casartelli wrote:I reckon, that if there was a 'West Wales' team, perceived as a small step down from the multiple Grand Slam winning national team, as opposed to a small step up from the Llanelli/Scarlets premiership team, that they would easily pull in 20k+ crowds for big European games.

They could take games to the Liberty or even the Millennium and would attract more people from down west as well as floating supporters from all over Wales. Same as if we had South and East teams too.

Even diehard Llanelli fans would fancy going to watch them if the rugby was good and there was a policy of developing local players brought up through west Wales clubs.

So you want them to change their name to West Wales - fair enough

Pull in 20k+ fans in a 14k stadium - little problem I can forsee there

They could take their games to the MS or Liberty as that would attract more regional fans - by adding on a 120m round trip minimum to the MS or 25mile round trio minimum to souless Liberty, not sure I follow the logic

Develop more local youth players - not really sure how much more we can do as I'm pretty sure we could fill a team with 1st team under 25 players, most of whom have come through the Academy.

Casartelli.

By developing more youth players would you be reffering to the likes of.

John Davies, Scott Williams, Liam Davies, Gareth Davies, George North, Rhodri Jones, Ken Owens, Lou Reed, Dom Day, Kirby Myhill, Rhys Priestland, Dale Ford, Rhodri Williams, Jordan Williams,Nic Reynolds, etc,etc,etc

Look lads, I think we should just leave him think what he wants. He's clearly ignoring everything we keep telling him anyways!

That is an impressive list mind. Could add Rob McCusker, Josh Turnbull, Aaron Shingler to that too

And even Ben Morgan, Byrne & Phillips as well

Counting Ben Morgan as a local lad might be a bit tongue in cheek though.

I'm telling you, hes got a fine Turk accent - he even asked me the other day "whose coat is this jacket" ...

Ah you all forgot that a number of them aint from the region. FOxy, North, Morgan are all from England, Shingler was born in Swansea, Byrne & Stodds are Valleys. See all we do is poach players and claim them for ourselves. Hell you could even claim we are poaching fans seeing as Dreamer and Smirnoff are based in Cardiff.

Being serious I do understand where they are coming from, but I think they don't quite understand what/where West Wales is. Which seems a constant theme on here.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:
Being serious I do understand where they are coming from, but I think they don't quite understand what/where West Wales is. Which seems a constant theme on here.

I know I've been described as coming from the Valleys by loads of people from Cardiff when I'm from Llanelli - and Llanelli on 606v2 has been described as a tiny village stuck far out in West Wales, when in fact you've loads of green and pleasant land between Llanelli and the West coast - around 70-80miles I think - and you never really here anyone mention the amount of fans who have to make a trek of a 100 mile roundtrip over some pretty bad A roads to get to the stadium and back every game (unless like me and Dreamer you've 'emigrated' to Cardiff)

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:
Being serious I do understand where they are coming from, but I think they don't quite understand what/where West Wales is. Which seems a constant theme on here.

I know I've been described as coming from the Valleys by loads of people from Cardiff when I'm from Llanelli - and Llanelli on 606v2 has been described as a tiny village stuck far out in West Wales, when in fact you've loads of green and pleasant land between Llanelli and the West coast - around 70-80miles I think - and you never really here anyone mention the amount of fans who have to make a trek of a 100 mile roundtrip over some pretty bad A roads to get to the stadium and back every game (unless like me and Dreamer you've 'emigrated' to Cardiff)

Would agree with all of that. I always say I'm from Carmarthen, as tis just so much easier, then trying to explain where Llandeilo is (and I won't even bother even attempting to try and explain where the village where I'm actually from is!).

The fact that people from as far away as Aberystwyth and Machynlleth regularly make the trip to watch the Scarlets, some people just can't seem to imagine exactly how far they are travelling, or how long it takes. But that's because we get fans from across the whole region. I know it doesn't seem to be happening for the other regions, but just because it doesn't happen for them, doesn't mean they should ignore the fact that it's working, and starting to work well for us.

rugbydreamer wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:
Being serious I do understand where they are coming from, but I think they don't quite understand what/where West Wales is. Which seems a constant theme on here.

I know I've been described as coming from the Valleys by loads of people from Cardiff when I'm from Llanelli - and Llanelli on 606v2 has been described as a tiny village stuck far out in West Wales, when in fact you've loads of green and pleasant land between Llanelli and the West coast - around 70-80miles I think - and you never really here anyone mention the amount of fans who have to make a trek of a 100 mile roundtrip over some pretty bad A roads to get to the stadium and back every game (unless like me and Dreamer you've 'emigrated' to Cardiff)

Would agree with all of that. I always say I'm from Carmarthen, as tis just so much easier, then trying to explain where Llandeilo is (and I won't even bother even attempting to try and explain where the village where I'm actually from is!).

The fact that people from as far away as Aberystwyth and Machynlleth regularly make the trip to watch the Scarlets, some people just can't seem to imagine exactly how far they are travelling, or how long it takes. But that's because we get fans from across the whole region. I know it doesn't seem to be happening for the other regions, but just because it doesn't happen for them, doesn't mean they should ignore the fact that it's working, and starting to work well for us.

You should see the trouble I get trying to tell English/foreign people I'm from LLaneLLi (or even some people from Cardiff) - I tried speaking Welsh to my missus' father before on the phone - he hung up the phone because he thought I was talking some strange language like Urdu or Mandarin!

I can well imagine! Mind you, I still get the blank stares for even mentioning Carmarthen, so end up just saying West Wales.

To which they go, "oh, like Swansea?"

rugbydreamer wrote: I can well imagine! Mind you, I still get the blank stares for even mentioning Carmarthen, so end up just saying West Wales.

To which they go, "oh, like Swansea?"

I know - it's almost like the map West of Swansea is blank with a warning "Here Be Monsters" written on it!

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

rugbydreamer wrote: I can well imagine! Mind you, I still get the blank stares for even mentioning Carmarthen, so end up just saying West Wales.

To which they go, "oh, like Swansea?"

I know - it's almost like the map West of Swansea is blank with a warning "Here Be Monsters" written on it!

considering what some places out West are like, that's not exactly all that inaccurate

rugbydreamer wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

rugbydreamer wrote: I can well imagine! Mind you, I still get the blank stares for even mentioning Carmarthen, so end up just saying West Wales.

To which they go, "oh, like Swansea?"

I know - it's almost like the map West of Swansea is blank with a warning "Here Be Monsters" written on it!

considering what some places out West are like, that's not exactly all that inaccurate

I was just thinking that about Ammanford and Saron (where my old man is from, Saron actually) - sounds like it's named after the Demon in Lord of the Rings!

two of my best mates went to Saron primary school, I shall take great delight in informing them of that!

rugbydreamer wrote: two of my best mates went to Saron primary school, I shall take great delight in informing them of that!

I always take great enjoyment with winding my old man up about it - I always say that's why they call them the 'Black Mountains'

Some good rugby communities up there though

My wife did her first teaching placement in Ammanford. It was an hour drive from Resolven but she liked it there. Her second one was at Adam Jones' old school.

I'm not surprised most people haven't heard of Llanelli or some of the other places. It's the same everywhere. However I do try and adjust pronunciations where possible to the 'correct' one. My favourite is Parky Scarlets.

HammerofThunor wrote:What I read in there isn't that debts are reducing but that loses are. Debts will keep increasing until they start to break even (hoped for next year). Also CCC haven't deferred the interest, they've deferred the payments. That means that the Scarlets don't have to worry about paying that debt off yet but the interest keeps accruing so the CCC don't actually lose any money (the bank did the same thing for my parents and their mortgage during the miners strike).

IF the Scarlets break even next year AND carry on that improvement into making a profit then they will be in a much better position. And also be seen as more secure to the people they owe money to.

I'm certainly no expert so please someone correct any mistakes I've made.

Dreamer:

Both Hammer: and I read the information the same way but not having the accounts in front of me it is open to debate. Unless someone is writing off their debts which I doubt, the debts are increasing. As Hammer stated, the loses from one year to the next are going down e.g., -1.4M in 2009 and - 0.7M 2010 equates to 2.1m over 2 years and if they do break even in 2011 they still have a -2.1M lose over 3 years. This does not include debts from previous years unless they are making provisions each year, this is unlikely as they would pay the interest to CCC year on year. I assume this is the 8.9M (from memory) debt referred too in the accounts.

As I said, without the accounts I am speculating (like all the regions) the data content.

Alun

Dreamer:

I seem to recall that a year ago the supporters were offered shares in the Scarlets, did this happen, how much were the shares and how many were sold as this could answer how some of the debt has come down?

[quote="glamorganalun"]Dreamer:

I seem to recall that a year ago the supporters were offered shares in the Scarlets, did this happen, how much were the shares and how many were sold as this could answer how some of the debt has come down?[/quote


The shares spoken about were issued free to all season ticket holders and were Issued as certificates of 100 £1.00 shares, theses were issued from the personal holding of one of the main Directors, a load of the debt refered to no here was actually changed in to shares effectively canceling out the debt by given more ownership of the club to the main creditors, one of those creditors in turn decided to give a large proportion of that back to the fans in the form of a shares issue to reward loyalty to Season ticket holders. That act in itself really displayed that at least 1 of the Directors is commited to the long term future of the club.

alun - basically what 2ndtimeround just said!

40% of the debt has been cancelled out by a few benefactors by turning their loan into shares instead that were given to season ticket holders.

Any clarity yet on what the Long Term Loans (£8.871m) are? Where they popped up from?

I have never heard or seen anything about those loans other then what you've put on here Casartelli.

Does anyone have a set of the accounts they can email me.

I am a Chartered Accountant so I can give you some proper answers rather than speculation.

If not I will download a copy later and give you my thoughts.

Doctor: I think Casartelli downloaded the accounts from his earlier post. The WRU accounts are interesting they can be downloaded from the WRU web site.

Anyone can download the accounts from the Companies House website. It's publicly available information. You pay a £1 for a report.

Or, alternatively, you can click your heels and repeat 'there's no place like Llanelli' - and deal with the debt by pretending it doesn't exist.

who's pretending it doesn't exist?

Every Scarlets fan on here has acknowledged that we are in debt.