WELSH Rugby Union chief executive Martyn Phillips has pledged to stop tinkering with the Principality Premiership as the top flight prepares to split into east and west conferences.

As was exclusively revealed in the Argus last month, the 16 clubs have voted to ditch the controversial January split into two tiers.

Instead they have opted for a geographical split with north Walians RGC 1404 joining the western clubs.

The quintet from the Dragons area – Newport, Ebbw Vale, Cross Keys, Bedwas and Bargoed – will join Cardiff, Pontypridd and Merthyr.

They will play each other home and away before the two conferences merge with the respective leaders rewarded with eight points and second place seven points all the way down to the bottom club carrying through a solitary point.

The clubs will then play the reverse of this season's fixtures to play a total of 29 games with the champions crowned without play-offs.

Last season’s 22-game format didn’t prove popular with supporters with clubs enduring a number of blank weekends in a fractured campaign, as well as a fixture list that could only be issued up to January.

The clubs were offered three options and, after they plumped for the east-west split, Phillips has committed to two years of the same structure.

“I’m not going to stand here and pretend everything in the garden is rosy, because we know it isn’t,” said the chief executive at the Premiership awards night at Principality Stadium.

“The feedback that I’ve had is that the start of the season worked pretty well but we lost our way from a fixture point of view into the New Year.

“We’ve done quite a lot of work and recognised that, doing work with the clubs to build on that and make next season better.

“Clearly we want the game on the pitch to be the best standard but that only works if you can make the money you need to and operate as businesses to be viable, so hopefully the changes will help in that department to get a good rugby season and a good business season all rolled into one.

“We don’t want to be a Union that controls everything and tells everybody what to do. We want to work with clubs and we have tried to work through different options for next season.

“It may not be the optimum yet but it’s certainly what clubs are looking for and we are conscious that we keep changing the format of this competition every year and that’s not the smartest way to work.

“We are pretty set that we will keep it stable for the next two years so clubs get used to the format and we let them get on with playing rugby without chopping and changing.”

RGC fly-half Jacob Botica was named as Premiership player of the year at the league awards while Neath’s Kieran Williams won best newcomer.

Full-back Ed Howley won tier two player of the year while Aberavon’s Jason Hyatt was named coach of the year after guiding the Wizards to the Premiership final when they were beaten by Merthyr.

Adam Jones was named best referee, Merthyr’s Matthew Jarvis and Neath’s Aaron Grabham were lauded for being top points scorer and try scorer respectively while Llanelli won the fairplay award.

Bargoed’s Dai Evans won try of the season for his effort against Neath while Aberavon team manager, groundsman, social club manager and stalwart Steve Jones received unsung hero honour.