WELSH Rugby Union chief executive Martyn Phillips has declared ‘the hard work starts now’ after the governing body were given the go-ahead to take over Newport Gwent Dragons and buy Rodney Parade.

The shareholders of Newport RFC gave the green light for the proposal at an extraordinary meeting with the WRU paying £2.85million for the nine-acre site, with the Black and Ambers receiving a cash sum of £600,000.

The deal needed the backing from 75 per cent of voters and it hit around 81 per cent after 351 said yes and 78 no. The targeted completion date is July 1.

“There’s a little bit of a sense of relief. We all thought it was going to be a very close call and that’s how it turned out,” said Phillips.

“On the one hand we knew that we only wanted to do this because we care about rugby and we care about rugby in Gwent.

“There’s a lot of hard work to do now. It’s the end of the beginning and we have to get moving tomorrow because the season is upon us and there is a hell of a lot to do.”

The WRU have previously said that they will drop Newport and Gwent from the region’s name while they intend to redevelop the northern end of the ground over the coming years.

“We planned for a yes and we planned for no, as you’d expect. My executive board is in tomorrow (Wednesday) and we have a got a full day aside on that,” said Phillips.

“We built a plan over the last couple of months in terms of what we thought was going to be required. There’s a long-term vision and strategies there as well as priorities for the next 100 days.

“We are very realistic that this will take quite a long time because we want to do things sustainably and we’ve got to make sure we don’t live beyond our means, as well as that we’ve got a massive responsibility to 310 other clubs as well."

They have shelved plans to lay a 3G pitch because Newport County are unable to play on artificial surfaces under Football League regulations with a hybrid surface to be installed instead.

Phillips said: “We do plan to address the pitch issue over the summer and need to press the button on that tomorrow (Wednesday). That needs to be acceptable to Newport County, which it will be.

“We would have liked to put an artificial pitch down, because we want this to be a vibrant rugby hub, but we can’t do that at the moment and it will be a form of Desso-like pitch.

“We have identified a manufacturer and we are working with them at the moment. We didn’t go all the way because we didn’t want to waste too much energy on it if it was a no vote. It will be a hybrid pitch and it will be quite a chunk of money to do that.”