Most of Welsh rugby’s 2018-19 fixture list is out and dates in the diary have been ringed. What hasn’t happened, argues Geraint Powell, is any real attempt to fit the various tiers together so that it all makes sense. Nothing illustrates the disjointed nature of the regional tier of Welsh professional rugby more than the annual release of the Pro14 fixtures. Regional rugby is a complete package, always has been and always will be if you want to obtain most of the resource concentration synergies in relation to increased earning and more efficient expenditure. Tying everything together at the end is where the biggest benefits accrue.

There will be an explosive start to the Guinness PRO14 season when the reigning European Rugby Challenge Cup champions Cardiff Blues host the Champions Cup and PRO14 winners Leinster. The Friday night shoot-out at the Arms Park on 31 August will give new Blues coach John Mulvihill the toughest of starts, but with Leinster unlikely to have their leading Irish internationals available so early in the season it might be a slightly easier task than later in the campaign.

While the WRU are urging players to come home to Wales to maintain their international careers, the same policy is not being followed when it comes to coaches. Robin Davey, in his latest column for Dai Sport, questions why home-grown coaching talent is being frozen out. The Welsh Rugby Union and the Wales management are doing everything they can to encourage exiled players like George North to return to Wales, yet they appear to be scouring the earth for the next national coach.

Wales have named the side to face Australia in their opening World Rugby U20 Championship game in Béziers on Wednesday. (8pm). Cai Evans (Ospreys) starts at fullback, with Rio Dyer (Dragons) and Ryan Conbeer (Scarlets) on the wings. An all-Scarlet midfield features Ioan Nicholas at 12 and Corey Baldwin at 13, alongside a Cardiff Blues combination of fly-half Ben Jones and scrum-half Dane Blacker.

Ospreys head coach Allen Clarke is planning a rebuilding job at the region after admitting that in failing to make the European Champions Cup they let down their fans. In a frank assessment of how far they have fallen, the Ulsterman – who suffered at the hands of his former province on Sunday – has spoken of “putting the pieces together” after a fractured and often fractious campaign. The Ospreys would have sneaked into Europe’s top tournament had they beaten Ulster at the Kingspan Stadium. Instead, they were stuffed, 35-17, and Clarke has recognised the limpness of their efforts over the last two years – which pre-dates his arrival – by talking about returning to the Champions Cup by the “front door” rather than the play-off tradesman’s entrance which proved beyond them in Belfast.

Brad Davies has warned his Ospreys players they must withstand an Ulster onslaught in their Guinness Pro 14 play-off for a European Champions spot. The region’s defence coach believes the Irish province will try and blow the Ospreys away in the early stages when they meet at the Kingspan Stadium on Sunday. The match will determine which team takes the final place in Europe’s premier tournament next season and Davies says it will be test of the Ospreys’ ability not so succumb under pressure.

The Scarlets and the Ospreys have much to live up to after the Cardiff Blues’ display last weekend, says Robin Davey. But there are plenty of reasons for genuine optimism. It’s a big weekend for rugby in the west, with both the Scarlets and the Ospreys facing key qualification games. For the Scarlets, already buoyed by a hugely successful season which saw them reach the European Champions Cup semi-finals, it means a trip to Scotland to face Glasgow in a Guinness Pro 14 play-off on Friday night.

The last threads of the rugby season are about to be tied up, with three of the four regions still having key matches remaining. The Dragons, though, are already under pressure to deliver from the opening week of next season, says Robin Davey. A runners-up finish for Wales in the Six Nations, with three of the four regions still left with something to play for in the closing weeks of the season – not exactly vintage, perhaps, but reasonably successful all the same. A Wales squad, minus many leading players who have been rested, head off to North America where they face South Africa in a fairly odd arrangement, then travel to Argentina where they will play two Tests.

Dafydd Howells wants to re-ignite his international ambitions after joining the Dragons from the Ospreys on a two-year contract. Howells, 23, played 42 times for the Ospreys, scoring 12 tries over the last five seasons and but joins the Dragons after recent shoulder problems. The wing – who was capped by Wales as an 18-year-old on the 2013 tour to Japan – said: “I’m hoping I can get going next season, enjoy the environment at the Dragons and push on as I still have Wales ambitions.” The Ospreys have confirmed that a total of 15 players, including Howells, are leaving the region at the end of the season.

Gareth Anscombe has paid tribute to Dan Biggar as the two Wales No.10s go their separate ways next season. Arsene Wenger’s farewell at Old Trafford was not the only meeting of old foes turned friends at the weekend. While the Arsenal manager shook hands and smiled with Jose Mourinho and Sir Alex Ferguson for one last time, Anscombe and Biggar did the same at the Principality Stadium at the end of Judgement Day.

The Ospreys’ derby clash against Cardiff Blues as one half of Judgement Day will offer a chance for revenge for last season as well as an early judgement on the work of Allen Clarke. Graham Thomas looks at the Ospreys’ new permanent head coach, his signing of George North, and the course they have set as they bid to recover their status as Wales’ top region. The first striking thing about Allen Clarke – newly confirmed as the Ospreys’ permanent head coach – is his size, or lack of. The record books listed him as on the small side of scales when it comes to hookers who played international rugby, with a fighting weight of only 14 stones, packed into a 5ft 9in frame.

Judgement Day weekend has arrived, a near end-of-season stock take and accounting both on and off the pitch. Geraint Powell casts his eye over the form of the four teams and the issue of geography in an expanding league. The geographical horizon of Welsh professional regional rugby suddenly contracts this weekend. The regular fans of the four southern Rugby Service Agreement regional franchises, together with occasional fans, neutrals from across the club game, and occasion eventers, will converge on the Principality Stadium in Cardiff for Judgement Day VI’s domestic double-header and the conclusion of the Guinness Pro14 regular season.