Welsh rugby runs as a pyramid under the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), the sport's governing body in Wales, whose membership takes in around 320 clubs from junior sides to the senior game.
Community and semi-professional rugby
At club level, men's rugby in Wales runs through the WRU Premiership, the highest community division, then the two-conference WRU Championship, East and West, and a further set of league divisions below that. The women's game runs its own national and regional competitions, and mini and junior rugby covers school-age players from around age eight upward, alongside cup competitions such as the WRU National Cup.
Above the Premiership sits Super Rygbi Cymru, a 10-club semi-professional competition launched in September 2024 to bridge the gap between community rugby and the professional academies. Its clubs, including Aberavon, Bridgend, Cardiff, Carmarthen Quins, Ebbw Vale, Llandovery, Newport, Pontypool, RGC and Swansea, play each other home and away before play-offs decide the champion.
The professional and national teams
At the top of the men's game, four regional sides, Cardiff, the Dragons, the Ospreys and the Scarlets, play in the United Rugby Championship and in the European Champions Cup or Challenge Cup, each running its own academy. The WRU has said the four-region model is not financially sustainable and has approved a plan to move to three regional licences, awarded through a formal process, from the start of the 2028-29 season. That plan has shifted more than once during negotiations, so treat wru.wales as the current word rather than any single earlier announcement.
The Wales national men's team sits above the regions, competing in the Six Nations and the Rugby World Cup, and is fed by Wales U20s, who play in the World Rugby U20 Championship, and by Wales A, a second national side used for further international match practice.
On the women's side, the national XV plays in the Women's Six Nations, supported by development sides at age-grade level and by the WRU's participation programmes, as the women's professional and academy pathway continues to take shape.
The system is being reshaped at several levels at once, from the regional licences to the academy structure beneath them, so anyone following a particular club or pathway should check wru.wales for the current position.
