Nigel Davies is set to leave Ebbw Vale to become part of the Merthyr rugby revolution.

Davies, who has been head coach at Ebbw for the past two years, is moving to their Principality Premiership rivals as their new director of rugby.

It is understood that current Merthyr coaches Lee Jarvis and Dale McIntosh will remain with the club.

It is another ambitious appointment by The Ironmen who have been upwardly mobile since multi-millionaire benefactor Stan Thomas arrived at The Wern.

Merthyr finished the regular season in third place and face RGC 1404 on Saturday in their Premiership play-off semi-final.

Ebbw failed to make the play-offs after finishing their post-season Tier 1 matches back in seventh place.

But Davies did deliver the Premiership title for The Steelmen in his first season in charge at the club last year and his departure will be a blow.

The former Wales centre has a coaching background and level of experience that none of his Premiership rivals can match, having worked at international level, regional, and top flight club rugby in England.

Davies was assistant to Gareth Jenkins at the Scarlets during their highly successful period in charge, before following Jenkins into the Wales set-up in 2006.

He was briefly Wales caretaker coach after the 2007 World Cup and worked for the Welsh Rugby Union for a time as coaching director before returning to the Scarlets to succeed Phil Davies in 2008.

From there, Davies was head-hunted by Gloucester to become their director of rugby in 2012, before the Aviva Premiership club replaced him two years later with David Humphreys.

Davies then joined Ebbw in 2015 following the departure of Jason Strange to become a skills coach at the WRU.