WELSH rugby's benefactors are still expected to press for five merged teams in next season's Heineken Cup and Celtic League after their crucial meeting today.

They may still not reach a final agreement on the precise make-up of those five sides when club representatives meet WRU chief David Moffett tomorrow.

But the cash-strapped WRU still need the benefactors on board because the Union can't afford to pay up the contracts of all the players if the outcome is to be provincial rugby, causing considerable redundancies.

For that reason merged sides could still be the way ahead and if the benefactors are still prepared to give their financial support, or a fair amount of it, five merged sides as opposed to four provinces could still be the final outcome within weeks.

Two have more or less been agreed, however controversial, with Newport and Ebbw Vale and Bridgend and Neath prepared to join forces.

That leaves Llanelli, Pontypridd and Cardiff, in particular, still battling to reach agreement.

It could be that Cardiff will emerge as the stand alone club if talks proceed down the path of merged teams.

Llanelli may, despite howls of protest, link up with Swansea after all, knowing they would virtually swallow up the St Helen's side anyway, especially without any real progress on Swansea's proposed Morfa Stadium.

If the two West Wales sides join forces that would leave Pontypridd linking with Caerphilly and Cardiff on their own.

Moffett would then have to sell that idea to all 239 clubs at next month's proposed extraordinary meeting but the Union still needs the support of the benefactors, so it could succeed.

The Welsh referees met with Moffett last night to express their concern at his plan to cut their match fees in half, reduce their mileage allowance and do away with the fourth official at matches.

They claim they have problems recruiting newcomers anyway and that these measures will make it even more difficult to attract them.

And the loss of the fourth official would effect things like time in the sin-bin and blood bin replacements, they claim.

* Newport's Heineken Cup match in Toulouse on Saturday (2pm GMT) is being shown live on British Eurosport, as well as French TV. The match will be refereed by Englishman Dave Pearson.

Toulouse are covering their pitch to make sure the game goes ahead after the cold snap hit the South of France with snow and ice even closing airports.

A postponement, even by 24 hours, would cause chaos for Newport and their travelling fans.

Toulouse hammered Montauban on Friday night in their final warm-up game before facing Newport.

Saturday will mark Toulouse's 50th game in the Heineken Cup. They won the competition in its inaugural year in 1996.