THERE will be no national game of rugby in Wales if the Welsh Rugby Union clubs do not vote for six clubs at the top level, warns Stuart Gallacher, Rugby Partnership Wales chairman.

"The game is bankrupt, we will not have a national game of Wales if this doesn't go through," said Gallacher.

The so-called Gang of Six clubs held a Press briefing in Cardiff yesterday with the aim of getting their points across about the perilous state of the game in Wales and the dire need to follow other major playing countries by reducing the number of teams at the top end.

They stressed that the very survival of the game is at stake, and that unless the plans for six teams are adopted the game here will be reduced to a semi-professional status. An extraordinary meeting of all 239 clubs is being held a week on Sunday, with the WRU recommending six clubs from the season after next and a counter-propsal by the First Division clubs for 12 from next season.

"I hope they'll vote on their consciences not emotion and understand the problems the game has," said Gallacher.

"People will get hurt by this, but I hope they will look at the bigger picture. We're under-achieving at international level with no prospect of improving in the short-term. "There's no quick fix and it will take at least three years before we get good younger players up to international standard."

If the vote goes against the six Gallacher warned: "We'll all have to re-evaluate our position as club benefactors are not prepared to put in more millions, and who can blame them while the Union are not forcing any changes through? "Being realistic we would have to go to a semi-professional game.

"The best players would go to England, but the key would be the best young players. "If they leave Wales now as 19 and 20-year-olds by the time they are 23 they would be qualified for England and would be lost to us forever.

"I'm not confident about the outcome of the vote, we'll have to wait and see and try to convert people to what we're about and change the misconception.

"If you look at the major playing nations in the world New Zealand and Wales with a similar population, New Zealand pay 250 people to play rugby with 100 semi-pros whereas we pay 270 to play in the premier, 500 semi-pro in the First Division and we pay in the second, third and fourth, that's 2,000 people paid to play rugby.

"Australia, the world champions, pay 150. How do we stop it - or are we prepared to?" Gallacher also wants to cut the number of non-qualified Welsh players soon.

"We have got to move and we can't do it with all these non-qualified Welsh players. But it is the real world now, Llanelli couldn't beat Leicester with 15 Welsh qualified players."

And he repeated his earlier warning about the dire future if the vote goes against the six. "Why should the benefactors have to do this year in, year out?" he asked.