Exeter offered him a ton of money and brought his missus over as well. He did really well for us and I'm happy for him but it would have been great for us to have hung on to him.

Good news if true, a lovely young man and a very good player.

rumoured to have been offered more by the turks as well

I often view the site , sad as it is to see the old Llanelly team reduced to its present state, it does amuse it's no longer the sprays , budgies etc , but now wishes of our position regarding Coach and acadamy, how the mighty have fallen some even suggest they should amalgamate with us

I'm thinking L and B are his initials, if so, well done OFF.

Whens he Joining, Jason?

Never ever trust a Turk

In the case of Scarletnut careful what you wish for

Comments on Scarlet Forum

Demise of Scarlets Poor Board Poor Coaches, poor Team

Where is our pathway like the Ospreys ( reference to the Budgies few and far between now )

Wish we had Booth

If down to 3 Regions looks like we would be dropped

Sad to hear regarding a great club like Llanelli But Scarletnut actions and his pal Moffat coming back to bite them on the bum ?

Is it 'cos he is a Turk? More likely because he is a small-minded, small-town scribbler. Deke Leonard was a Turk but he could really write.

Further to everything said, Bradley oversaw the rise and investment in Gloucester-Hartpurry, their women's program, and raised them from a different club in the local area to a proper part of the community, who last year sold out a game at Kingsholm and won the league. In his interview on the O's YouTube channel he eludes to the idea of the Ospreys hopefully having a women's program down the line, which is a hugely exciting thought. It's the game's biggest area of growth, and a chance to bring in all sorts of new fans.

Given the input from Osreylia to the Hartpury women in the past it would be a kind of homecoming. I went down there to the pre-season friendlies in 21 and 22 and the atmosphere was one of old friends renewing acquaintance. If any of that was his doing then we are in for a treat.

Not long back Skewen women's team was one of the strongest in the UK and about a third of the Wales squad were Ospeys some of whom are now Hartpury stalwarts.

Just seen that 9 Hartpury students are in the Ospreys U18 Women squad. The links keep growing.

Its been talked about on the other site, but you would think/hope that he has been enticed to the role because of some exciting plans hes been made privvy too. Or am i just hoping?

What makes anyone think that some writers just make it up? I would be shocked if Nicky were not "getting interest" from a bunch of teams but I would also be shocked if some clubs were not interested in about 30 of our lads.

I mean we being Y11 are "interested in" the whole Cheetahs squad and probably the 'Canes as well.

Still nothing in the planning permission pipeline. https://www.swanseabaysportspark.wales/

Not a lot there about SH or Ospreys and no huge lumps of money on the horizon.

Was anyone else in the riverside bar pre benneton game for the Q and A with, (I think) the ceo? He was asked directly about it and said he couldn't give a direct answer but said to know that they are working behind the scenes, or something along those lines

According to TB, he and the players are hoping to have a few games there next season...realistically, be our permanent home the season after. RB said to me, if it's possible we'll make it happen...all this was a conversation I had with them 4-6 weeks ago. MJ looked at me in his usual "wtf are you?!' way 🤣

Confirmed by the Ospreys now as well.

Of course. This past year he took up 4 average player wages and next year it would have been over 4.6 wages. That is of course if the horribly inaccurate Welsh media is anywhere near correct.

Provence are currently second in Pro div 2 so will be very keen to secure promotion to T14 this year. Would not be a surprise if a deal was worked out.

The old Orange Free State which the Cheetahs represent was historically one of the biggest talent areas for young players. They struggled to retain them as the big 4 provinces of Natal Western Province Transvaal and Northern Transvaal had so much more money. I imagine they will have schools in the Free State that lay to a very high standard and have a regular supply of young talent.

Check out the Youtube pre-game presser. Toby says they were trying to bring these guys in as RWC cover and that they are at Llandarcy now,

Financial? I mean we are going to be footing at least some of the wages, which means the players stay in orbit of their parent club whilst getting game time.

Good spot Wayne. I wonder if we are worried about having two Team Wales loose heads we could lose at the same time or Gareth Thomas has returned from RWC with an injury. It may be this was totally unrelated to the rumours of a tight head.

Toby confirmed that Gareth Thomas is indeed injured and we only have Nicky and Garyn. He has been dual registered so may have played at Pirates with James Fender.

Yes showmaster it's mentioned online that he's been out with the Pirates, but he's been back with the Chiefs this season and played in the Premiership Cup against I think London Scottish.

Some competent experienced players would do me fine, to complement our young squad.

The problem with overseas signings is the need WRU approval to get a permit and the WRU seem intent on forcing the regions to play young welsh players who are not yet ready for this level to see them set back and make regional fans watch garbage rather than be allowed to bring in better talent for the fans of the regions to watch.

Your point is right though. There are players in those Porugal Chile and Uruguay teams that would push for a place in the full Welsh squad. The reality is they are not far behind us. The Chile 9 is better than any of our options at 9.

I'm just living in hope.

Liam Edwards played for Swansea last season and was part of the Wales U20's squad for the 6N and JWC.

Alex Ashton was announced a new signing from Cardiff Uni (I believe) at the same time it was announced that Hopkins, Hickey, Lewis Lloyd etc had signed new deals a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks for that.

I hope he has more brains that Morgan does.

I wonder who...

Was anything said about the potential St Helen's move?

They would never discuss that in a public forum until it is officially announced. And there will not be an official announcement until the project is ready to go. There won’t be official comment on rumours.

Just for the sake of true comparision, is the Leinster shirt the match shirt version? The Ospreys normal replica is £73.

Why do you assume only people in Neath would want to buy an Ospreys shirt?

Grudge to bare?

Non ospreys supporter?

The list goes on:)

The prices, wow!!! £73 for a replica, £102 for a match jersey...don't think they'll sell many of those.

I never buy rugby jerseys so no idea what is a fair price. They look ok to me but thought they may have more to say about Ecowatt assuming this is the major international sponsorship that has been forecast.

🤔email

Totally agree mate. Being an O's fan is as frustrating as it's ever been!

Thanks Tommy

He really is a nice fella.

What really interests me is how involved Tips could be on the coaching side of things. I reckon he could be like O'Gara- good very quickly.

He's very close with Toby at sessions

Doesn't he train the Trebanos youth already? I know that he and Bradley and Nicky have been collecting coaching tickets for a while.

I'm sure Paul announced on here that it's been pushed back...

One hopes that someone finally realised that Cardiff have been playing in Blue and Black hoops for nearly 150 years.

www.ospreysrugby.com

The Ospreys announced today that they had signed hooker Ethan Lewis to bolster their options in the front row.

So long in fact that they call themselves "The Blue and Blacks".

To be fair, that's only a training top by the look of things.

They always played in Cambridge blue and black hoops

paul.rogers83

I was offered it but turned it down 😳😳😀

Well let’s hope whoever he or she is they have strong communication skills because there is a vacuum at the top the organisation in

terms of its communication of its strategy We have never had a CEO/MD who could communicate clearly and effectively the shareholders.vision to its fan base. Now is the chance to put this right.

I couldn't go either mate so hopefully someone off here did manage to go.

Maybe someone could explain why half of them were in Cardiff kit with an Osprey mask and the rest were in a sickly greeny turquoise that looked like a washed out version of the putrid Irish World Cup kit.

Was there anything good about it:)

I'm hearing the kit launch is next Wednesday. Macron. Sponsor ECOWATT.

Don't shoot the messenger if it's not accurate:)

Thanks for the info, keep up the good spying .

Sorry, wrong tense, Saints HAD Ecowatt but now have Utilita as secondary shirt sponsors. Still room for a major name on first team gear.

The tidal lagoon project is now called the Blue Eden project and one of the lead players in the consortium is a business called DST Innovations who are into renewable batteries with the energy coming from tidal power. Others in the consortiumirt include Andritz Hydro Siemens and Enable if you take a closer look tomorrow

Suspect the renewables project at the Lagoon is the type of project Ecowatt energy could be involved with,

They've been superb mate especially with Ospreys in the community

Is there a link to the images of the proposed development of SH Paul?

Philtronics truly bought into OITC, youth work and generally being "good neighbours". O's may get a more lucrative deal but they will need to work hard to find a more empathetic sponsor.

How imminent is imminent? Any update on this mate

Well "soon" was about a month, so who knows what "imminent" is

Was it "imminent" or was it "immanent" or was it "eminent"? Prominent, predominant, opponent, impotent.... could be anything, English being what it is and the appalling state of spelling since they invented Spellchecker.

I believe the only way that they can change supporters opinion and minimise loss of regulation season ticket holders is to make a clear and unequivocal confirmation of resiting to our own ground

That would change my and I believe others minds

Separately

The pals that rang me did not wish to lose our social side

My wife and I moved many years back from the " corporate" side due to a lack of crowd and atmosphere around us

The Riverside Bar was akin to the old rugby club bars, unfortunately about 8 years ago the numbers were restricted and despite the best efforts of the OSC numbers have continued to dwindle as has the Club atmosphere

Our own ground and as my son proffered, we could offer University Students a ticket and pint for £8

They would add to atmosphere and surly recoup the cost of the free beer , I never stopped at one as a student and we would hopefully claim many of them as long term supporters, as many stay in the area

Pretty much in agreement with that and I would add in the ability to generate decent levels of non match day year round income given where St Helens is situated. I would be amazed if the intelligent people on the board do not share that view as well. But you cannot announce something until it is signed up and finalised and all negotiating points are covered. I suspect we thought by delaying to the end of July on we would be in a position to announce. But clearly we are not and had the season ticket been delayed any longer they would have been attacked for not keeping to what they promised. So yes we boxed ourselves into a corner by giving the end of July as a date and then had to go ahead and try and make the most of a difficult situation. In hindsight we should have scheduled things differently but we would get everything right if we could use hindsight. Any announcement on St Helens probably has factors beyond our control.

I'm hoping the delay of the season ticket announcement was because we were trying to co-ordinate it with one on St Helens / the Swansea Bay Sports Park development and there will be some news in the not-too-distant future (and the confirmation of a game in London wasn't simply it).

Khbw82, re your point about trying to attract students, when I was at Swansea Uni some would go to games at St Helens and this was before the days of social media and digital marketing. A targeted campaign with a discount etc could put some extra bums on seats.

Given the fact our shareholders had to contribute many millions under this new agreement to keep pro rugby alive I really fail to understand not buying a season ticket over the issue. I would urge you to think again. If everybody took your stance there may not be a St Helens to go to in the future

I think there must be more simply because there are three other TBC fixtures one on New Year’s Day. The Ospreys are desperately lacking

a CEO who can interact with the fan base on the journey they are taking. An outgoing personality who will interact with fans and potential fans is a crucial and missing part of this jigsaw. Just relying on the communications department to drop feed news to fans and force them to rely on rumour is not the best way forward.

Spot on. Having a one-way communication approach through social media makes ospreys feel a bit faceless, and detached IMO.

I know he has been off on sickness leave for several months.

Contract up probably

I would far rather us get more specialist coaches than spend money on nebulous jobs like performance director . We will improve our performance when we improve our speed of ball and too much is on Booth who needs as much specialised support as he can get.

I didn't read it like that. "WoL understands" in a Steffan Thomas article about Ospreys usually means he made it up and Nigel Walker talking to Mark Jones about his future is normal. They were employer and employee then, they aren't now.

There may be a foundation to it all but right now it is just gossip like us moving to Ealing.

The WRU website this morning has this by Huw Bevan, interim performance director, speaking about the Under 20's.

"The appointment (of Mark Jones) was interim so we obviously need to have a look at that, and we will need a full time head coach going forward and obviously Mark, if he was interested in the role, would be a strong contender.

Ideally, we would like to keep him involved but we have to go through a process because as it will be a new appointment, we will have to fulfil our obligations as there could be other coaches interested in the role."

Definitely, I assume he’s completed the WRU’s Player to Coach Programme and hope the Ospreys have some sort of transition plan in place.

I haven't seen anything neither, just hearsay from a reliable source a few weeks ago. I was chatting to someone very high in SRFC on Monday, I mentioned the Ospreys moving to SH, he just smirked not giving me any idea if he was saying yes or no 🤷‍♂️ But that was only on us moving there, not developing the ground.