The Welsh Rugby answers as seismic

The Welsh Rugby Union yesterday put forward their ‘optimal system’ for the future of the game in this country. In essence, it’s a set of proposals going out to consultation, outlining radical change, but stopping short of saying it is what will be happening. A reduction in professional clubs, an improved Super Rygbi Cymru and a shared training base for professional tugby are all on the cards. But crucially, no decisions have been made yet. As the dust settles on the Union's ‘optimal system’ being confirmed officially, here's how the governing body responded to some of the key issues. Ben James reports

- Ben James reports

WRU chairman Richard Collier-Keywood is adamant that the key question isn’t around ‘four, three or two, but rather a host of key decisions beyond the number of professional teams in Wales.

However, as much as they will want to focus on other things, the fact of the matter is that the ‘four, three or two’ question is what people will focus on. It’s only natural when jobs are on the line.

In terms of how we will get to two, there’s no answer yet on that one.

Instead, the focus from the WRU hierarchy is whether or not two will even be the final decision.

“I think that the first step is to look at the model that we've proposed, and then depending on where we get to, we can start to really focus on locations and names and all those really important elements of it,” said Dave Reddin, WRU director of Rugby and Elite Performance. “But we're going to go through that step by step and I don’t want to preempt any of that at this stage.

Instead, all we know is when the board will make their decision - with that coming at some point in October.

“That's my commitment to this process,’ added Collier-Keywood.

“We will corral the board and we'll spend whatever time we need to together listening to what’s come out the consultation, listening to the exact new proposal on the back of the consultation information.

“I guess it then depends what they propose, I mean if they were to come back and propose a two plus two model, which is one of the very limited build out of the infrastructure that’s going to support performance in Wales, then I figure that's going to be pretty easy to implement.

“And the two model is probably a bit harder to implement than that and you'll see when you look at the more detailed pack, we ask the exec to think about three things in considering the four or the three or the two type model.