Moffett promises shake-up
December 3, 2002

New Welsh Rugby Union chief executive David Moffett has promised a complete shake-up of the union's affairs as he looks to re-build the game in the country.

On his hit-list is the sub-standard playing surface at the Millennium Stadium and he has warned of redundancies as he looks to streamline the union's operations.

Commenting on the much-maligned pitch in Cardiff the former chief executive with the New Zealand Rugby Union and Sport England told the Daily Telegraph, "We had some experts in last week talking about what would work.

"We're going to have to lay a normal pitch, albeit that is going to have to be replaced two or three times a year. But I think once we can get to that, we can make sure the pitch is good all the time."

A new pitch, costing about £180,000, is to be laid immediately on top of the pallets for cricket exhibition matches in January, the Six Nations Championship and the Wales-Azerbaijan European football qualifier.

As for the reorganisation of Welsh rugby: "The pain is going to be widespread. The WRU is going to go through a lot of change as well because one of my first tasks is to restructure the WRU.

"There's going to be a few redundancies, there's going to be an interest in getting our costs under control so we can look at the whole of Welsh rugby.

"We have the requirements of the Premier League but we also have the issue of the grass roots of rugby in Wales. If you don't fix the grass roots, then we haven't got a future in the game."

"What we want to do is put in place a system that is going to allow the national team to play to high standards week in, week out."

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