Championship Rugby

[fivepointer]

Jersey are champions. Thats a pretty impressive achievement.

[Banquo]

We look forward to playing them. Might have to swim there

[Mellsblue]

[FKAS]

I'd love for Jersey to get promotion. Be a great away trip. They just need to whack a temporary stand on the ground and they'll do alreet.

[fivepointer]

They wouldnt need a temp stand. They dont come close to filling their 4,000 capacity ground now.

It might be a nice awayday but what would they bring to the Prem? You look at their squad and it would do well to gain more than a handful of points in a season. The quality just isnt there.

Thats just where the Champ is.

[Mellsblue]

Thats just where the Champ is.

By design.

I’m fairly certain I’ve read/heard that Jersey have no desire to go up in the short to medium term.

[Mellsblue]

I can’t comment on the veracity of the source but…

[FKAS]

And since the pound has plummeted Vs the euro then those budgets will go further.

[fivepointer]

Brian Moore in the Telegraph.

Jersey Reds' ascension to the top of English rugby’s Championship has reignited the debate over promotion and relegation from the Premiership. Why is their ambition being stymied?

What do you have to do to make it into the Premiership? The answer depends on whether you think that the principle of promotion and relegation is sacrosanct and how you see the shape of the top tier of English rugby.

Letting them come up and down has one advantage – it is a simple philosophy that doesn’t need much thought. Allow clubs to sink or swim and let the market take its course. You can’t buck the market – who was it who said that?

The problem with this is what happens when you have no decisive plan for the top tiers of the game. You get what we’ve got.

A Premiership that loses millions every year. One which has seen two clubs, Worcester Warriors and Wasps, disappear due to financial mismanagement, and another, London Irish, having to make up its wages at the 11th hour to prevent letters before action and a strike.

You see a Championship that is a loose confederation of unbalanced interests, some wanting promotion, others happy just to be there and a rump of up-and-down clubs that yo-yo between tiers two and three.

While you cannot but admire the progress made by the likes of Jersey Reds and Ealing Trailfinders, doing so is not the same as blindly accepting that their interests are the same as the greater rugby good in England.

We are presently in the throes of having a new Professional Game Agreement (PGA) thrashed out between the clubs and the RFU and these negotiations are not as they once were. In days past the clubs felt able to play hardball.

After all, had they not financed the introduction and maintenance of the professional game in England after the RFU, due to malign influences, abrogated the responsibility for transition?

How times have changed. We now see clubs looking across la Manche, envious of a system that they think works because the French Union is much more generous than the RFU, and wanting more handouts from a governing body whose principal responsibility should be to the community game.

If you really want to know what the difference is between the games in England and France, it is quite simple. In the South and West of France, which is the heartland of French rugby, there is little or no major football – rugby is the main sport and has been for decades.

Not only does this drive civic pride and the provision of municipal facilities, but it also attracts investment from millionaires and major corporations.

This drives a far more lucrative TV deal and that is why French clubs have a higher maximum spend and operate on a different level to any other league in world rugby. This allows a regulated and successful Pro D2 to exist as a second tier and both leagues have to prove financial capability before the start of each season.

I do not deny the effort of clubs like Jersey Reds and Ealing Trailfinders but the whole system needs redress, not piecemeal tinkering. Crowds of 3,000 and inadequate grounds will not add to the Premiership and anyone that thinks so is deluded. If you reintroduce the madcap spectre of seasonal promotion and relegation, all you will do is destabilise the situation further.

This is not football, which in England is ubiquitous and supported by millionaires, multi-millionaires, billionaires and entire countries. To pretend rugby could ever emulate the counterintuitive finances of football is unrealistic to the point of madness.

When the parties complete the next PGA, the RFU has every reason to want agreement on not just the composition but the role of the Premiership and Championship as a coherent structure.

It needs to maintain the ambition of clubs to ascend, but not every year. Whatever the agreed time period, clubs should not face the desperate battle to stay up or go up and this would allow everyone to build and plan more gradually.

The other two issues where the RFU can and must demand change is something at least akin to central contracts, even if not titled so.

The RFU give the clubs so much money for the release of their players they cannot go on with the situation where players are turning up for international duty unfit; something highlighted in Steve Borthwick’s recent Six Nations report.

Finally, there has to be a major restructuring of the academy system. As run by the Premiership clubs it has been a disaster, with players playing only a handful of senior games or being lost to the game altogether. This system has been within the purview of the Premiership clubs and look where it has left us.

[morepork]

"but it also attracts investment from millionaires and major corporations".


This is not the definition of community but maybe is the ugly reality said out loud.

[Mellsblue]

[FKAS]

I hope the fullback makes it in the Prem, the surname is a commentators nightmare.

Pleased to see Grahamslaw and Owlofela doing well. Tigers academy products.

[Puja]

I hope the fullback makes it in the Prem, the surname is a commentators nightmare.

Pleased to see Grahamslaw and Owlofela doing well. Tigers academy products.

I was looking at it another way. I mean, if AJ Can't, who on earth can?

Puja

[Mellsblue]

[Mellsblue]

As the above Tweet seems to be unavailable:

[Puja]

As the above Tweet seems to be unavailable:

Seems fair enough. The last thing the situation needs is further time-consuming pissing about, and I'm not very well disposed towards them for being party to Atlas fucking Worcester over. Just like with Richmond and London Scottish, it's sad to lose them, but it's time to go. Best of luck to the phoenix club, hopefully based somewhere back in London.

Puja

[fivepointer]

Always on the cards. Wasps were given a lifeline but have been unable to grasp it. Tough on those committed to the club but rebuilds from the bottom of the pyramid are possible.

[Which Tyler]

Seems fair enough. The last thing the situation needs is further time-consuming pissing about, and I'm not very well disposed towards them for being party to Atlas fucking Worcester over. Just like with Richmond and London Scottish, it's sad to lose them, but it's time to go. Best of luck to the phoenix club, hopefully based somewhere back in London.

Won't the existing, amateur arm of Wasps F.C. be the phoenix club? currently playing in Herts/Middlesex 1, based in Action

Similarly with Worcester TBF

[Puja]

Seems fair enough. The last thing the situation needs is further time-consuming pissing about, and I'm not very well disposed towards them for being party to Atlas fucking Worcester over. Just like with Richmond and London Scottish, it's sad to lose them, but it's time to go. Best of luck to the phoenix club, hopefully based somewhere back in London.

Won't the existing, amateur arm of Wasps F.C. be the phoenix club? currently playing in Herts/Middlesex 1, based in Action

Similarly with Worcester TBF

I had no idea such a thing existed (or if I did, I'd forgotten it). Excellent news!

In which case, I hope all the worthies like Dallaglio, who were trying to get Worcester Wasps going, switch their focus to supporting and boosting that club.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

ETA: For anyone interested

Wasps FC: https://www.waspsfc.co.uk/

Worcester RFC: https://worcesterrfc.rfu.club/

[Stom]

ETA: For anyone interested

Wasps FC: https://www.waspsfc.co.uk/

Worcester RFC: https://worcesterrfc.rfu.club/

I know someone who used to play for Wasps FC. Been there a couple of times, was a nice clubhouse, tucked away behind houses, as I remember.

[Mellsblue]

Statement from Wasps:

https://online.pubhtml5.com/vgjv/sylc/#p=1


Lol at the final para on page 1.

[Puja]

While it is very salty indeed, they're not wrong. Who on earth would invest in a Championship club while the RFU are still tightlipped about their future plans for it?

Puja

[FKAS]

Whole thing is a bit of a mess though by organising nothing and moaning about it Wasps now drop so far down the leagues that they are barely above social teams. That will definitely help maintain their investment value.

[fivepointer]

They may have a point but they got themselves into a mess thanks to their own decision making and inept management. Seems to me they were given an opportunity that other clubs werent given but have failed to meet the conditions the RFU imposed.
This simply HAS to be a watershed season for the elite game. There has to be a serious, far reaching review of how the elite game in England is run. Absolutely nothing should be taken off the table.