WRU chief Roger Lewis faces a grilling from Premiership clubs

Welsh Rugby Union group chief executive Roger Lewis will meet Premiership clubs to address growing discontent at the way the league is being run.

The clubs are concerned that recommendations made in a review last April have not yet been implemented.

That included plans such as the introduction of development teams.

There are also worries that a scheme to allow an unlimited number of regional players to drop down to play games for Premiership sides will not materialise.

Even if players from the Dragons, Blues, Scarlets and Ospreys are made available, the clubs are concerned that a consistent approach will not be adopted across the four regions.

Lewis, who will meet with club representatives the week after next, has also raised eyebrows with the admission that the WRU is considering funding the resurrection of a fifth regional team.

606: DEBATE Should Wales have a fifth regional team?

The Celtic Warriors were disbanded in 2004 after the WRU, under then group chief executive David Moffett, decided a fifth region was surplus to requirements and a drain on financial resources.

But Lewis has now raised the possibility of a fifth "development" region being set up in north Wales.

A number of Premiership clubs are struggling financially and Bridgend chairman Derrick King has called for money to be invested in improving the Premiership rather than in an extra region.

"In the Premiership the clubs only get �72,000 each a year," King told the Glamorgan Gazette.

"Would it not be better to spend any extra money on Premiership clubs?

"When you look at developing players, they are all attached to regions and clubs in South Wales.

"What would happen to them? Would the WRU want to relocate them to north Wales?

"I think it would be better for the WRU to fund the Premiership properly because the clubs know how to develop young talent.

"The Premiership could be made far more attractive."