Leeds expect to unveil the England hooker Mark Regan as their latest recruit this week having pipped Cardiff for the Bath forward's signature.

Regan has two years to run on his contract with Bath but Jonathan Humphreys' arrival from Cardiff this summer convinced the 30-year-old that his future lay elsewhere. Leeds hoped to announce his signing at a press conference yesterday but said that "paperwork problems" had delayed the 23-cap forward's arrival.

Regan will join the former Bath rugby director Jon Callard at Leeds and he will add some experience to the front five as the Yorkshire club, spared relegation last season because the First Division champions Rotherham failed to satisfy all the criteria for membership of the Premiership, try to improve on their first showing in the top flight.

Cardiff may have missed out on Regan but yesterday they signed the former Wales scrum-half Richard Smith from Worcester to replace Robert Howley, who joined Wasps this month.

Smith moved to England from Ebbw Vale a year ago and his former employers were last night holding a board meeting to discuss a financial crisis which is threatening the future of the 127-year-old club.

Vale are expecting a loss of £350,000 this season after the decision of the main benefactors, Marcus and Paul Russell, to stop putting their money into the club because of their concerns about the way the game in Wales is being run.

"Like other benefactors in Welsh rugby, my brother and I have had to make up the considerable shortfall between expenditure and income," said Marcus Russell, the manager of the rock band Oasis. "I have always said that I would not pour money into a black hole. Our finances have been cut and next season's fixture list is a dog's dinner with only one home game for us in a period between January and April."

Ebbw Vale's chief executive Tony Dilloway met the chairman of the Welsh Rugby Union Glanmor Griffiths yesterday to see if the governing body could help, but a request by Swansea for financial aid was turned down last month and the WRU has a cash-flow problem itself.

There was speculation that Ebbw Vale might be wound up before the end of the week. The club's director of rugby Ray Harris said: "What we need is a fair share-out of money for clubs in the top division; the top five receive appreciably more than the bottom four. But we will do everything we can to keep the club alive."

Meanwhile Harlequins have captured the full-back Nathan Williams from Stade Français.