Grounds for concern

Situated just two streets back from Cardiff's main city centre thoroughfare (rather like having Villa Park in Corporation Street), it has been rebuilt in the last decade and having been a lovable but ramshackle thing for most of my lifetime, now screams modernity.
It's more of a bowl than I expected meaning that, even at the ends of the pitch, you're not too far away from the action. Unlike the new Wembley, it has a retractable roof that actually shields both the pitch and the front few rows of spectators from rain while the toilets appeared serviceable, clean and adequate for the needs of a 70,000 crowd.
There were no queues at the turnstiles thirty minutes before the show was due to start, while we were out of the ground and into the Bacchanalian nightmare which is Cardiff at close to midnight in less than ten minutes.
Most remarkably, though, it was only when we were leaving the stadium that we realised what the authorities had done to protect the pitch from the rigours of 30,000-plus pairs of dancing feet, several huge speaker stacks and an enormous mixing desk - they'd ripped it up.
A layer of what looked like concrete covered the hallowed ground where Gareth Edwards scored that try and presumably the stadium authorities will have some fresh new turf in place for the start of the rugby season.
It's a wonderful stadium and regeneration has presumably done wonders for the finances of the Welsh Rugby Union who will, no doubt, have pocketed a healthy cut of the proceeds of Saturday's spectacular.
Which brings me to part two of these musings because my wife and I were staying with friends in Bath, where an agonised debate is underway about the future of the local rugby club's Recreation Ground stadium.
Situated even closer to the middle of Bath than is the case in Cardiff, its' 10,500 capacity with a temporary stand doesn't cut it in the 21st century professional rugby world.
Yet it's one of the iconic venues of the English game and two years ago, when the local newspaper began a petition to 'Keep Rugby at the Rec', 20,000 people signed up.
For that reason, the club would like to stay and redevelop the site into a 20,000-seater stadium but talks with the stadium's board of trustees and the Charity Commission (the land has charitable status) are not progressing with any haste and in the past week, club officials have admitted considering other options.
These, which they say are a last resort, include greenfield sites up to five miles from Bath and a groundshare with Swindon Town, an idea which I'm told is akin to Moseley proposing a move to Coventry.
While this has been going on, Bath have seen the likes of Olly Barkley and Steve Borthwick sign for other clubs, citing frustration at the club's limited growth potential.
So while Bath make the most of their limited revenue-raising options, clubs with bigger and better grounds or groundshare deals with football clubs get more money, on and off the field, attract better players and the gap grows accordingly.
As one contributor to the debate told me: "It is more than slightly possible that once a nice new stadium is built, Bath will be relegated anyway."
Bath relegated? The thought is already there and it is, of course, an inevitable part of professional sport.
But something inside me doesn't like the idea that, through no fault of their own, one of the great names of English rugby could be strangled like this. Michael Blair, former rugby correspondent of this parish and one of the men who inspired me to want to work for this newspaper, would certainly agree.
And it's certainly a cautionary tale for Worcester Warriors and a string of ambitious National League One clubs.