WILL the Welsh Rugby Union step in and do something about the basket case that is Newport Gwent Dragons?

Something has to be done for it can't carry on like this, stumbling from one disaster to another on and off the pitch.

Just look at the facts. We are in a results business and the Dragons have just been whitewashed in the Heineken Cup for the first time, taking their record in the competition to 33 defeats in 42 matches since they started up in 2003 and in that time they have finished bottom of their pool five times and in third place twice.

After 19 matches this season they have won a paltry six, last season at the corresponding stage it was eight, the year before six and the year before that six again. How long can this go on?

And the Dragons have been forced to move a home Heineken Cup-tie in successive seasons, first to Llanelli, then to Cardiff because they don't possess the necessary equipment to beat the bad weather.

And there was the Toby Faletau fiasco recently when he did not have the right documentation to get into France for the Toulouse game.

This was an incident which followed the one where half the party missed a flight to Dublin for the Leinster game and had to catch a later one to Belfast and proceed by coach.

How much more do the long suffering fans have to put up with before something is done?

They still show up in numbers, over 5,000 at the Glasgow dead rubber and many travelling to France and elsewhere with Faletau-type wigs.

So the spirit remains, but for how much longer?

The WRU own half the Dragons, but the problem is they can't be seen to help one region over and above another, though there is a perception in these parts that the Scarlets have been given the odd leg up or two. One thing for sure, though, action is urgently needed by someone, somewhere.

The Dragons receive the same basic money from the WRU as the other regions, but for how much longer? Will they be reduced to development status like Connacht in Ireland?

That cannot be allowed to happen. But one thing for sure, the malaise must be stopped, it can't just drift any longer.