Dropping to three regions would benefit Welsh rugby - Davies

Jonathan Davies won 96 caps for Wales and played six Tests on two British and Irish Lions tours

Former Wales centre Jonathan Davies says reducing the number of regions from four to three would improve the quality of Welsh rugby.

The Wales men's national side have suffered 12 successive international defeats, the worst losing sequence in their 143-year history.

At a regional level, only the Ospreys finished in the top half of the 2023-24 United Rugby Championship table, while this season two of the bottom three places are occupied by Welsh regions.

The 2024-25 season is also the first time no Welsh side is competing in the top tier of European competition.

Each of the four Welsh regions has seen their salary budgets slashed to £4.5m, while in Scotland - where there are just two teams - Glasgow and Edinburgh have closer to £8m.

"If we went down a region it would make the quality of the product better," Davies told Scrum V: The Warm Up.

"The squads would be stronger and there'd be more resources [per team] from funding.

"The main aim is to get Welsh rugby back to where it should be, competing and winning games across the board.

"Until egos are in a place where we are all behind one common goal, we will not get that."

Wales men's head coach Warren Gatland's position is under review after an historically bad year.

Gatland's side have gone a whole calendar year without winning a Test, which has not happened since 1937.

The international retirement of key figures in recent years - such as Davies, Alun Wyn Jones, Justin Tipuric, George North, Ken Owens and Dan Biggar - forced Gatland and his predecessor Wayne Pivac to turn to younger, less experienced players.

Davies pointed to the record of the nation's Under-20s team, adding that a lack of success at academy level has had an impact on the senior side.

"The quality we have put out in the last 18 months, as Welsh rugby, has not been to the standard we would like," said Davies.

"If you look at the Under-20s over the last eight years, the best they have done [in the Under-20s Six Nations] is third.

"They've been in the bottom half of the U20s Six Nations for seven years feeding into the men's team, which has then not had that quality.

"There is more to be done at an academy level."