Sam Warburton confessed with a heavy heart that Welsh Rugby has to cut one of its four regions with the former captain admitting the "daft thing is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result". With the country's player pool drying up and funding becoming an issue with each passing year the expectation is that one of the Ospreys, Scarlets, Dragons or Cardiff Blues is set for the chop. Warburton himself came through the ranks at the Cardiff Blues, playing his whole career in the capital, but is a believer that going down to three teams is ultimately in the nation's best interest. Especially as they look to rebuild and snap a winless run that now stands at 17 games - the most for a tier-one nation in the professional era. The WRU announced earlier this month that its four regions will no longer be equally funded as reports continue to swirl over a team being cut. Warburton claimed keeping four for so long came from "a good place" but the time had come to either merge a region or be ruthless. He told Mirror Sport: "I've said they need to be cut, I don't want them to. I would love us to keep four teams and add a north Wales region and had players pouring out of that pathway but thats not happening and it's not happening down south either. All the reviews that have come about have all concluded for the last ten years that you need to go down to three. "We've fought to keep four from a good place to keep them alive, but the reality is we just can't and we have to drop to three. I don't want it, but if we're looking at it subjectively it has to happen. My preference would be merger, but if no one is willing to merge then unfortunately there has to be a cut throat decision. Is it perfect? No. Whether it is right or wrong, nobody has the right answer. "But one answer we do know is we've had four teams for 20 years and it's bought no success. The daft thing is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I fully support going down to three, from a player quality perspective, we can't support four teams nor do we have the funding." Welsh rugby bosses intend to implement a new two-tier funding system and have served a two-year notice on the current agreement that had remained the central cog of the domestic game. That current Professional Rugby Agreement (PRA) deal runs out in 2027 and was due to be superseded by a new five-year deal that Ospreys and Scarlets have not signed. Only Cardiff, who are owned by the WRU, and privately-backed Dragons have put pen to paper. The four sides are expected to exist in their current form until at least June 2027, but beyond that it remains unclear what direction the Welsh game will go in. The governing body says it has an "open mind to all constructive and realistic proposals on the way forward". Sam Warburton was speaking at Canterbury of New Zealand’s Train Like a Lion event. To purchase Canterbury’s new Red Dahlia Boots, as worn by Canterbury ambassadors and Lions squad members, Mack Hansen and Andrew Porter, click HERE .