Wales star Gareth Anscombe hits the nail on the head as Anglo-Welsh league feelings made clear
‘As a player, I would certainly love to see that happen,’ explained Gareth Anscombe.
Wales international Gareth Anscombe has suggested that an Anglo-Welsh league could be beneficial for all concerned.
The 33-year-old Wales star has spent the 2024/2025 season with English Premiership club Gloucester after his move to Japan didn’t work out last year. He has been playing alongside fellow Wales stars Max Llewellyn, Tomos Williams and Josh Hathaway for the Cherry and Whites.
The 42-cap flyhalf appeared as a guest on the latest episode of the Sportin Wales podcast with Ellis Jenkins. He was asked by presenter and business partner Alex Cuthbert whether the Welsh teams merging into a league with the English sides would be a good idea.
Cuthbert had cited the lack of support at Swansea.com Stadium for Ospreys’ quarter-final against Lyon in the Champions Cup last weekend, where just over 3,000 fans were in attendance. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.
“Understanding the Premiership now, in the past when they’ve had these conversations, the Premiership have always been quite strong in their belief that they don’t need the Welsh regions,” began Anscombe. “But I think even the Premiership clubs are struggling. I think the fact that it’s down to 10 teams, the Premiership as a competition is a little bit light.
“They would really benefit from having a few regions in the Premiership. We played the Scarlets at Kingsholm around Christmas time. The travelling support that they had in ‘The Shed’ was fantastic, it was amazing. The one thing that the URC battles with is that they get no travelling support. I think that the Welsh regions would certainly add to the Premiership.
“I don’t know whether four regions in the Premiership would be the answer, but I think having two or three that could step up to the Premiership, it would really benefit from it. Talking about Welsh rugby, it would massively benefit from that. As a player, I would certainly love to see that happen but there’s obviously a lot of conversations and difficulties around the URC and the Welsh Rugby Union’s commitment to the URC. I think from a spectator point of view, it would be amazing because the atmosphere is unbelievable.”
Cuthbert added: “I do think the URC is a real tough league, how well some of the teams are doing in Europe – Leinster, Glasgow. It’s a tough league. How do we get more out of the game in terms of young fans coming to games? Being more of an entertainment business. If you watch American football or NFL, it seems to be a real good thing for crowds, but we don’t quite have that in rugby, do we?”
Anscombe said: “It looks so much better on TV when we have full crowds, suddenly the game experience and the match day experience is far better for the fans. I’ve played in some games in the URC where you play teams from South Africa or Italy and there are no fans out there. The atmosphere is dead, from a fan’s point of view the match day experience can’t be as enjoyable when compared to the 12,000 that you can get in the Premiership.
“I think that’s whether URC could really improve and there’s obviously multiple challenges with all the different countries that compete in it. I think now, from the Premiership point of view, they would really benefit from adding a couple of teams into the league. Because the English teams also need a couple more home games, we’re towards the back end of the season now, we’ve only got two home games left from the six Nations.
“That’s not a lot in terms of trying to bring cashflow into the club, there’s other challenges with other clubs. Having two or three extra teams in the Premiership and suddenly you’ve got two or three extra games, and makes a big difference to the profit-loss margin at the end of the season.”
Check out the clip below.
If you would like to watch the full episode of Sportin Wales, click here.
