Fans won’t like the stars missing so many games
The latest deal between the RFU and the Premiership was announced last week, although details of it first appeared in The Rugby Paper some months ago. Depending on your point of view and prejudices, this is either the Premiership clubs wielding too much power, or a signal that English rugby is in rude health. It’s far too simplistic to focus on the £200m+ value of the deal over an eightyear period, although that’s what many have done.
Eddie Jones gets a bigger EPS squad which he can select earlier in the year, and a larger squad can be selected for international periods.The clubs get compensated for releasing their players, and how much they get depends on observing the rules on English Qualified Players – one of the RFU’s key points. Also, for the first time, if the clubs’ players make the England team successful, more money is paid for their services – what’s not to like about that?
Here’s one thing: if a player is central to Jones’ plans, then it’s possible that he could miss up to ten Premiership matches out of 22, and for many fans, who have forked out for a season ticket, that’s a worrying number. Central contracts are dead in the water in England, thank goodness, but if access to the clubs’ players was ever increased again, we’d be getting close to central contracts by stealth, something that must never be allowed to happen.
Missing from all of this is the way that the Championship, is funded. PRL can hardly be criticised for that, as they’re a confederation of Premiership owners, and it would be a funny old world if they put another competition’s interests ahead of their own! The Championship is the RFU’s baby, and it’s for them to sort out how it’s best funded.
Maybe it’s time to have a cold, hard look at the viability of the Championship set-up. At any time there are probably only a couple of clubs who would ever have a realistic chance of making it to the Premiership, and even then their chances of staying there would be remote. As I said last week, I think that London Welsh, Irish and Scottish would be better off in the Pro12, a league desperately seeking a lifeline, and if they were stripped out of the Championship there wouldn’t be a lot of ambition left.
I expect some will be outraged by this, but just how relevant is the Championship nowadays? My answer, not very, I’m afraid.
I’ve searched long and hard, but I can’t find many positive words anywhere about the AngloWelsh Cup which, after a break for RWC2015, restarts this season, but without its sponsor, as LV= have decided not to renew. The affection fans felt for the competition was reflected in its nicknames, the Luncheon Voucher Cup, the Low Value Cup, and so on.
The format is basically mad: teams play each other to get points, which count in a pool made up of teams they don’t play!
The other overwhelming drawback is that it’s entirely up to clubs to decide what level of team to field – some treat it as a development opportunity, while others take it more seriously and put out a better side. Once it comes to the knock-out stages, almost every club then have their eyes on winning it, because a trophy of any kind lets them put a positive spin on their season. However, despite the lack of enthusiasm for the competition from supporters, it seems more effort is going into it this time. BT Sport will cover the competition, and have committed to show twice as many games as in previous years. If it’s to become any sort of a success, let’s have some clear qualification rules about who can play. Whether it’s done on age, on experience such as number of first-team matches played, or whatever, let’s have a level playing field and turn it into a proper ‘A’ team competition.
The word ‘great’ is bandied about too readily, but on Friday a proper great retired. Nick Easter played 281 times for Harlequins, and won 54 England caps, which are fantastic statistics, but it was his impact on games that made him great: the Quins fans loved him for that but he passed the test for opposition supporters too.
If your team was playing Quins, I bet you his was the first name you looked out for on the teamsheet, because they were simply a much better side when he was playing. He passed the ‘love to loathe’ test in spades – during the game he irritated the life out of us, but my goodness we wish he’d played for our team!