Anger over Bridgend-Neath merger plan

Less than a year ago, the Bridgend club represented precisely 16.66 per cent of Welsh rugby's "Gang of Six", a group dedicated to streamlining the top flight of the domestic game while making damned sure they remained in business. Now, Bridgend are 50 per cent of a "Gang of Two", having agreed merger terms with Neath, and are telling the "Gang of Five" – Cardiff, Newport, Pontypridd, Llanelli and Swansea – where to get off. If Wales could score tries as easily as they produce gangs, they would beat the All Blacks every time.

David Moffett, Welsh rugby's recently appointed group chief executive, and Stuart Gallacher, the Llanelli CEO and a major player in the politics of the club game in the Principality, met yesterday to discuss the Bridgend-Neath agreement and its implications for any future downsizing of the professional end of the sport. Unsurprisingly, given the rampant tribalism and self-interest at work in their neck of the union woods, they were serenaded by a cacophony of warnings, accusations and insults, all of them delivered in public.

Gallacher's description of the merger as a "loose cannon" brought Mike Cuddy, a director of Neath, spluttering into the open. "It beggars belief that such comments could be made by the very individuals who, earlier this year, tried and failed to appoint themselves and their clubs as stand-alone provinces," he said, referring to a Gang of Six blueprint that would effectively have condemned his financially challenged club to amateur status, despite results that established them as a top-three outfit. "It is clear that these people are continuing to act in their own self-interest and have not accepted that such self-interest needs to be set aside if Welsh rugby is to progress."

Cuddy's outburst was echoed by Leighton Samuel, the Bridgend owner, who rounded on his former colleagues by saying: "If nothing else, our decision has started a debate and told Llanelli, Swansea, Pontypridd, Cardiff and Newport that they cannot just have their own way. If they think they can have their way over everything, they can think again." It did not appear to occur to Samuel that the likes of Neath, Ebbw Vale and Caerphilly were aiming similar comments at him as recently as last spring.

Already charged with rectifying the worst international playing surface in world rugby – the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff is a state-of-the-art stadium betrayed by a state-of-the-swamp pitch – Moffett now faces an uncomfortable few weeks on the club front. Most serious rugby thinkers accept the need for a smaller élite in Wales: Steve Hansen, the national coach, wants to go as low as four in an effort to maximise potential at Heineken Cup and Celtic League level. But there is no agreement on numbers. Moffett will need the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job to bring the argument to an amicable conclusion.

The Heineken resumes tomorrow night with matches in Cork, Belfast and Sale. The English club, in hot form over the last month following disappointing European defeats by Bourgoin and Glasgow, take on a Llanelli side boasting 14 capped players. Simon Easterby and Dafydd Jones will partner Scott Quinnell in the visitors' back row – a combination that leaves Dave Hodges, the American loose forward who performed so brilliantly in Llanelli's run to the semi-final last season, on the bench.

Northampton, who host Cardiff on Saturday, will not benefit from the services of the England scrum-half, Matthew Dawson, who picked up knee ligament damage in the early stages of last weekend's Premiership victory at Leicester and is not expected back until mid-January.