A MIXTURE of clubs and districts -- that is expected to be the unsatisfactory outcome of the long-running Welsh rugby row today.

At the 35th attempt yesterday, the premier clubs finally struck an accord involving a five-team future.

Llanelli and Cardiff were controversially set to stand alone, with Newport combining with Ebbw Vale, a deal struck months ago, and Neath eventually agreeing to go with Swansea and Bridgend with Pontypridd.

But Newport fans were furious at Caerphilly last night that they were being forced to combine with a rival club when Llanelli and Cardiff are to stand alone.

And they were even more angry at the proposed funding from the WRU.

That is believed to be £1.76m for the merged teams and £1.36m for the two clubs when Newport members were told at the special meeting the night before that single entities would receive only half the amount of combined teams.

That was still to be ratified at another meeting of the clubs this morning ahead of a crunch meeting with WRU group chief executive David Moffett and a league management meeting after that.

The teams were still holding out for a final pot of £8m instead of the £7.5m which Moffett put on the table.

The figures presented yesterday meant Cardiff and Llanelli were to lose £400,000 each a season, though they had none of the contractual obligations of the merged teams.

Also to be decided today was which four teams would be entered in the Heineken Cup and which side would compete in the lesser Parker Pen tournament.

The likely outcome of that was Cardiff. Merged sides could not be expected to pay a penalty for combining while Llanelli's Heineken Cup record excluded them, leaving Cardiff for the Parker Pen, though they were expected to fight against it.

The breakthrough yesterday came in the wake of Llanelli's decision to take out a High Court injunction against the WRU for four sides, claiming such a move would be unlawful.

That meant, for legal reasons, a deal could not have been struck by the time of the European deadline of April 2 for entry to their competitions.

Add to that Swansea's decision to go into temporary administration and the pressure was really on to reach agreement.

Neath and Bridgend were the clubs to finally move, Bridgend chief Leighton Samuel tuning up late at yesterday's meeting when he originally said he would not attend because of Llanelli's court action.