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WRU reveal new plan to lure players back from England after scrapping exiles programme
Jun 3, 2025
The WRU has been criticised for scrapping its exiles programme but insist better times are ahead
The Welsh Rugby Union is changing its long-running Exiles programme — but performance director Huw Bevan insists the new version will be more effective at keeping the best Welsh talent in Wales and convincing those lost to the English system to return.
In the past the WRU's exiles programme has been responsible for identifying Welsh qualified talent in England and further afield. But the WRU believes it has replaced it with a superior system, with the aim of retaining players in Wales and repatriating those who are based in England.
This will be the aim for both the men's and women's game.
"We are trying to restructure the emphasis of the programme to focus more on retention of players within Wales and the repatriation of players who are primarily in England," Bevan told WalesOnline.
“We believe that the majority of the players capable of playing professional or international rugby have already been identified by us or elsewhere.
“This is because the best players are already identified, in England either by a public school who are linked to an academy or directly from Wales, by academy people recruiting them back home from across the border.
“They have either leaked out of our system to attend public schools, or been recruited by academies in England, or we already know about them through the Welsh academy system
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