WHILE chewing the Principality Premiership fat at last week’s game between Newport and Merthyr at Rodney Parade an acquaintance who travels the grounds said something unintentionally farcical: “I think Llanelli could be in trouble this season”.

Trouble? The Welsh Rugby Union’s changes to the top flight mean that even Belgian side Soignies, who were beaten 356-3 by rivals Royal Kituro in February 2015, would find it hard to find trouble.

Regular readers of this column will know that I can occasionally be a tad grumpy; it’s not just in terms of hair growth that I am like Larry David and Victor Meldrew.

But just one month into the Premiership I am prepared to call the combination of ring-fencing and a January split as being even more disastrous than last season’s six-point try trial.

At least with the World Rugby scoring experiment you could just accept its ridiculousness and get on with the task at hand – play everybody home and away to try and get in the play-offs, then see who comes out on top.

Last season was entertaining on that front but now ring-fencing plus the split means confusion reigns and there is the risk of eight teams clocking off at the turn of the year. It all feels rather contrived.

For those that don’t know, the teams will branch into two divisions after 15 games and all the effort that has been spent in making the top eight will then be wiped out by a sort of Millennium Stadium bug, with accrued points scrubbed out ahead of a seven-game shootout for the play-offs.

Add to the mix the inherent problems with a lack of symmetry for fixtures (half clubs have the advantage of playing eight home and seven away before the split) and seven fixtures against ? played at a venue TBC.

Oh, and it is inevitable that some clubs will play just 10 home fixtures in the Premiership (enduring a loss of gate money and bar takings), so you can see that it’s going to be a lot of fun at the turn of the year.

Basically, if you work at the WRU then all leave is cancelled in January – there’s going to be a lot of paperwork to get through.

By then of course, eight clubs will already have lost interest in the league. Sure, there’s a prize for winning the bottom half but they will very much be Phil Neville while the champions are Gary.

We are only in the first week of October but already we are in a situation where five clubs, including Newport, have just one win to their name and very little margin for error to avoid being lumped with the also-rans with just the Welsh Cup to salvage their season.

If a player is tackled in a February league fixture in the bottom half of the table when nobody is around does he make a sound?

The WRU have always been at pains to stress the importance of the Premiership and the role it plays in the development of talent – they plough £1.6million into it every year – but it’s just one confused mess of a league, and that statement comes from somebody who loves covering it because there are some wonderful people at great clubs.

Premiership chiefs stress its importance in terms of development but in my opinion the standard has dropped in recent years, partly because of the constant tinkering, to the extent where the promoted quartet of Merthyr, Swansea, RGC 1404 and Bargoed must wonder what they have joined.

To their credit the Ironmen and RGC, two well-funded sides, have started the season strongly and the former were mightily impressive at Rodney Parade, but even they are surely pondering ‘is this it?’

When on a busman’s holiday at a Premiership game last season I chatted to a coach, somebody very well respected in the game, whose game in a lower league had been postponed.

“Is the Premiership always this bad now?” he asked me. It was a tad harsh, and it should be pointed out that we can see the odd stinker whatever the level, as Australia versus South Africa showed last weekend, but I believe that there has been a drop.

No doubt the chiefs will disagree with me and point to ball-in-play time etcetera but ring-fencing, necessary given the incessant tinkering to the Premiership, is leading to many clubs treating the next three years as time for experimentation.

There are already question marks about whether the Premiership is really the best vehicle for preparing players on the cusp of professional rugby for the next step up – interestingly Cardiff Blues and the Ospreys played what was effectively an A game last night ahead of the British and Irish Cup – and the changes will lead to even more scrutiny. Young talent may be given a chance but will the action be of the required standard?

I don’t doubt that the denouement will be captivating but too much of the build-up will now be tepid.

South Wales Argus:

THE European Rugby Challenge Cup has papered over the cracks at Newport Gwent Dragons in the last two seasons but hopefully in 2016/17 the Welsh derbies will help in that respect.

There are problems at Rodney Parade that have been present for years, off-field problems that lead to on-field struggles. With the Dragons' paltry budget it is almost inevitable that they struggle in the bottom four of the Guinness Pro12.

An escape from league woes has been provided by jaunts to the Challenge Cup semi-finals in the 2015 and 2016, the former seeing them produce a hugely disappointing performance in Edinburgh and the latter ending with a plucky display in Montpellier.

Fingers crossed the second tier European competition can provide more memories to go along with shock wins at Stade Francais, Pau and Newcastle plus the magical quarter-final successes against Cardiff Blues and Gloucester.

The joy provided by those last-eight victories was heightened by the wins being against local rivals, one from down the road in the capital and the other just over the border.

There's nothing like a derby win but sadly they are few and far between for the Dragons. They were whitewashed in the Guinness Pro12 last season and haven't beaten a Welsh side in the league since that famous win in the Cardiff rain on Boxing Day, 2014.

Since their inception in 2003 they have won just FOUR of 40 away league games against Welsh rivals (in Llanelli in 2007, Cardiff in 2003 and 2014, in Swansea in 2010).

That means they will be big underdogs when they take to the turf at Parc y Scarlets on Saturday evening but a shock success would be a welcome boost for their long-suffering supporters.

It's also imperative that they send the odd shot across the bows of their rivals to the west while we pray for the sort of investment that would make derby delight a more regular occurrence.