THE Welsh Rugby Union may have won the battle, but the war has only just begun as the governing body and the regions square up to one another.

Make no mistake, this very public bust-up between the WRU and the regions is all about power and control of the game. Yes, it’s that serious.

On the one side we’ve got the WRU led by chief executive Roger Lewis, image obsessed, and on the other we’ve got David Moffett, a real rugby rottweiler.

They are the guys who are at least heading up the rival bodies, the four regions turning to Moffett to lead them right out of the blue in a shock announcement a week ago.

Just one of many questions which needs to be asked is why did the regions feel compelled to ask such a controversial figure as Moffett to come out of the shadows to head up what they must have known would be a bitter battle with the WRU?

Clearly they were at their wits end over a number of issues, not least the failure of the WRU and Lewis in particular to meet their requests over the terms of the new participation agreement.

The fact that Lewis declares a 100-page document is ready to go out to the regions after 14 meetings only muddies the waters and is in conflict with what the regions are saying.

Stuck in the middle of all this is Wales coach Warren Gatland, who I predicted in this column a week ago could get so fed up with the wrangling – which was only beginning then – that he could walk away.

How prophetic, then, that hours later at the announcement of the Wales squad for the autumn series Gatland should say precisely that – he is beginning to question his own future when the two parties just can’t agree.

At the centre of his frustration was the refusal of the regions to release their players for training a week earlier than usual to prepare for the first match in the autumn series against world champions South Africa a week on Saturday.

That would have meant them missing the final EDF Energy Cup group games this weekend while claims were also made about insufficient notice being given by the Wales management to the regions about this extra training proposal which, in part, was a cover about alleged lack of financial compensation stretching back to last year’s World Cup.

Gatland then came up with a compromise, suggesting he has the players for the first three days of this week, hands them back to the regions on Thursday to prepare for the EDF matches before they return to the Wales camp next Monday.

But the regions turned that down as well before delivering a real rabbit out of the hat in Moffett. He wasted no time in making his presence felt and it got very heated when he spoke about Lewis’ personal and work problems.

He is not exactly the most popular man in Wales in the first place given that he laid waste significant areas of the country as he brought in regional rugby at the expense of nine clubs before allowing one of them, the Celtic Warriors, to collapse, disenfranchising the whole Rhondda area in the process, as well as parts of Gwent. Many have never forgiven him.

I happen to believe he saved Welsh rugby from a very nasty fate because the game was heading for bankruptcy, the Union heavily in debt and unable to finance nine clubs.

So Moffett stepped in and took decisive action to get the number of sides down and more concentrated with talent to enable them to compete in Europe in particular. On top of that, he reduced the WRU debt significantly even if that was due, to a degree, by making a number of employees redundant.

But that’s Moffett for you and no sooner had people got over the shock of his re-emergence last week than he enjoyed his first victory when the International Rugby Board ruled they have no jurisdiction to interfere with an internal dispute.

But it was shortlived because Lewis then pulled his own rabbit out of the hat when he went to the High Court on Friday and won a verdict which sided with Gatland’s compromise, so the players duly reported for Wales training yesterday.

But don’t think for one minute that this is the end of the matter. It’s only the beginning because the regions are not prepared to leave it there and Moffett is busily trying to garner more support, even trying to set up a meeting with the Premier Division clubs – so the plot thickens.

It’s obvious the regions are no longer prepared to accept the crumbs from the WRU table, they want far more control over affairs, they want more money – it has to be about that doesn’t it? – and they want a much greater say.

In England the RFU and top clubs were at battle stations for years before an agreement was finally reached this season. The clubs have their own umbrella organisation and they will receive massive compensation for the release of players for two-week periods to the England training camp, meaning they will miss half their clubs’ Guinness Premiership fixtures.

The WRU doesn’t have that kind of money, but the regions still think they should have more and they want to control things like TV deals and sponsorship which would leave the WRU pretty much toothless.

The battle lines have been drawn up and talks will have to take place between the two sides whether the WRU welcome the arrival of the new body called Regional Rugby Wales or not.

The big problem is that Moffett and Lewis don’t like one another. They have completely contrasting styles, one all confrontation and bristling with aggression and the other full of phrases like ‘Welsh rugby is a band of brothers’ or ‘we must stand shoulder to shoulder,’ coming as he does from a public relations background.

The public are not particularly drawn to either, but that’s where we are and it can only get worse as the dispute escalates after the courts were brought into it.

Have any of them thought about the players and Warren Gatland in all this?