No one at Parc y Scarlets understands why they and the Ospreys are on the chopping block for the union’s proposal to cut a club by 2028

Eight o’clock, Saturday night and at Parc y Scarlets the fans are starting to sing. Their scrum-half, Dane Blacker, has just come skipping through half a gap in the Cardiff line. Blacker has slipped the ball on to their loping lock, Sam Lousi, who has flicked it out the back of his hand to the centre Joe Roberts. And Roberts has juggled it up from one hand to the other, gathered it back in and gone sprinting in to score in the corner. They’re leading 5-0 and in the stands it’s Sosban Fach and Hymns and Arias and “Scarlets! Scarlets! Scarlets!”

And somewhere in among it all, reports will say later, a new chant too – “Dave Reddin’s a wanker”.

• Doubt over regions is fast escalating into a civil war

• Six Nations squad announcement overshadowed

The prevailing mood in Welsh rugby has been frequently dark, but rarely this bible black. Once upon a time a Six Nations squad announcement would have topped the agenda across the country; on Tuesday it felt like a semicolon in a much bigger narrative. Even Wales have never selected seven players whose club is in imminent danger of being axed by their own union.

The bare facts of the situation are increasingly stark for all involved. The existing owners of Ospreys, Wales’s most successful region of the past two decades, have just been nominated controversially as the preferred bidders for Cardiff, potentially clearing the way to reduce the number of Welsh professional sides from four to three. The internecine politics have become so increasingly toxic that Steve Tandy, the national head coach, had to plead for rugby‑related questions at his lunchtime squad announcement.