RRW chief executive Stuart Gallacher believes the salary cap will bring long-term benefit © Getty Images

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News: Welsh regions adopt salary cap

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Welsh regional rugby chiefs are confident that the new salary cap will help them combat the loss of top talent to their European rivals.

International stars such as Mike Phillips, Lee Byrne and James Hook have all been lured away in recent months but they are just the latest players to opt for a bumper pay day in France's Top 14 or elsewhere. In a bid to provide financial stability, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and Regional Rugby Wales (RRW) have agreed a salary cap of £3.5m for each region as of next year and while that figure remains short of the £4.2m cap in the English Premiership and the £7.1m limit in France's Top 14, officials believe it will provide the long-term solution to the player drain.

RRW chief executive Stuart Gallacher believes the new economic regulations, that works out as an average salary of £92,000, will be crucial to protecting the Welsh game's future. "I believe this is the first building block to working together to collectively try and get to the position to give our best players the opportunity to stay in Wales," he told the Western Mail.

"We are all working hard to try and get a package together that will be sufficient in the long-term. There is an immediate short-term threat from France and we would be naive to think otherwise. But we have to meet it head on and see what we can do in the future. It is a collective issue for the region and the union together to solve.

"There is an element of market forces at work and there is not a huge amount we can do about it at the moment. If you look at certain players touted to be going to France, the age profile is the older player looking to negotiate their final contract.

"They have been offered a far greater financial incentive than any of the Welsh regions can offer them from a limited amount of French clubs. You can't blame them because they have their families to provide for.

"There has always been a threat, 20 years ago it was rugby league and I went down that route myself. There has always been a route where you could go to improve your financial lot. This is the latest issue but we want to try and address the problem with a long-term strategy.

"We have to survive and be sustainable," he added. "We owe the supporters and the players to try and give them a sustainable business going forward. We could not expect the benefactors to keep the game going in Wales like they had for the last 15 years.

"We are in the middle of the greatest recession we have known. We can't keep going to the Welsh Rugby Union saying we need more money or have a problem because they have a limited amount of funding as well. We have to try and help ourselves as regions and that is we are doing."