{"id":9217,"date":"2016-02-23T14:32:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T14:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/?p=9217"},"modified":"2016-02-23T14:32:52","modified_gmt":"2016-02-23T14:32:52","slug":"welsh-regional-rugby-fails-to-capture-the-publics-imagination-says-butler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2016\/02\/23\/welsh-regional-rugby-fails-to-capture-the-publics-imagination-says-butler\/","title":{"rendered":"Welsh regional rugby fails to capture the public\u2019s imagination, says Butler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>THE curse of Welsh regional rugby reigns on \u2013 crowds are small and deflated and players continue to look elsewhere for more stimulating rugby.<br \/>\nEven rugby pundit and ex-Wales\u00a0captain, Eddie Butler dislikes the Welsh regional set-up.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9227\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9227\" style=\"width: 330px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Eddie_Butler_and_Iqwal.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-9227\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9227\" src=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Eddie_Butler_and_Iqwal.jpg\" alt=\"Welsh rugby pundit and commentator, Eddie Butler.\" width=\"330\" height=\"330\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9227\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9227\" src=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Eddie_Butler_and_Iqwal.jpg\" alt=\"Welsh rugby pundit and commentator, Eddie Butler.\" width=\"330\" height=\"330\" \/><\/noscript><\/a> <strong>Rugby pundit Eddie Butler says Welsh regional rugby needs to change.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nHe said: \u201cIt hasn\u2019t captured the public\u2019s imagination. If we were playing in front of full houses and losing, I wouldn\u2019t worry so much, but that\u2019s not happening in Wales.\u201d<br \/>\nOn Saturday, only 5,321 people went to watch the Cardiff Blues play against Leinster at the Cardiff Arms Park.<br \/>\nCompare this with Bath rugby, which had a sell-out crowd of almost 13,500 people watching their Aviva Premiership game against the London Wasps.<br \/>\nAnd Ulster trumped that with 15,201 people watching their Guinness Pro 12 match against the Llanelli Scarlets on Sunday.<br \/>\nButler added: \u201cIn Ireland, the regions play on Friday nights in front of full crowds with a buzzing atmosphere and in England it\u2019s more or less always guaranteed to be a full house \u2013 whatever they\u2019ve got, the public like it but we just don\u2019t have that here.<br \/>\n\u201cWhat we do about it, I don\u2019t know. We are stuck with the model. You can\u2019t turn back and return to club rugby and you can\u2019t keep trimming the regions.\u00a0So we are stuck. It\u2019s such a shame.\u201d<br \/>\nButler did suggest ploughing more resources into just one region to try and boost interest and improve performance. However, this might further disenfranchise the other Welsh regions.<br \/>\nHe was critical of Northern Hemisphere rugby as a whole and said the Six Nations is too fixed in its ways.<br \/>\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t budge much. The Six Nations is the Six Nations. There are no plans to make it the Seven Nations or to replace anybody of the six with somebody else or to move it in the calendar.<br \/>\n\u201cWe always play it in February and early March when the weather is at its worst. If we could ever play on lovely dry grounds, we might improve.<br \/>\n\u201cEvery time we play the World Cup everybody says we\u2019ve got to improve standards in the Northern Hemisphere but we don\u2019t actually do much about making it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0THE curse of Welsh regional rugby reigns on \u2013 crowds are small and deflated and players continue to look elsewhere for more stimulating rugby. Even rugby pundit and ex-Wales\u00a0captain, Eddie Butler dislikes the Welsh regional set-up. He said: \u201cIt hasn\u2019t captured the public\u2019s imagination. If we were playing in front of full houses and losing, I wouldn\u2019t worry so much, but that\u2019s not happening in Wales.\u201d On Saturday, only 5,321 people went to watch the Cardiff Blues play against Leinster [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,4],"tags":[898,3435,1886,3436,328,339],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rugby","category-sport","tag-cardiff-blues","tag-eddie-butler","tag-llanelli-scarlets","tag-regional-rugby","tag-six-nations","tag-wales"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Welsh regional rugby fails to capture the public\u2019s imagination, says Butler - The Cardiffian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2016\/02\/23\/welsh-regional-rugby-fails-to-capture-the-publics-imagination-says-butler\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Welsh regional rugby fails to capture the public\u2019s imagination, says Butler - The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0THE curse of Welsh regional rugby reigns on \u2013 crowds are small and deflated and players continue to look elsewhere for more stimulating rugby. Even rugby pundit and ex-Wales\u00a0captain, Eddie Butler dislikes the Welsh regional set-up. He said: \u201cIt hasn\u2019t captured the public\u2019s imagination. If we were playing in front of full houses and losing, I wouldn\u2019t worry so much, but that\u2019s not happening in Wales.\u201d On Saturday, only 5,321 people went to watch the Cardiff Blues play against Leinster [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2016\/02\/23\/welsh-regional-rugby-fails-to-capture-the-publics-imagination-says-butler\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-23T14:32:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Eddie_Butler_and_Iqwal.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cathyduncan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cathyduncan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cathyduncan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2016\/02\/23\/welsh-regional-rugby-fails-to-capture-the-publics-imagination-says-butler\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2016\/02\/23\/welsh-regional-rugby-fails-to-capture-the-publics-imagination-says-butler\/\",\"name\":\"Welsh regional rugby fails to capture the public\u2019s imagination, says Butler - 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