>> Guscott: Policing salary cap just got a lot harder
“The relegation race is likely to be a cliffhanger with little separating the ten clubs below Saracens and Exeter”
IT promises to be the tensest relegation battle for a long time, but while it tells us that the Premiership is highly competitive it is not necessarily the strongest club competition there is. If it was as strong as is often claimed then it would have much better representation in the later stages of the European Cup than it had last season. Instead, it looks like this time Saracens will again be the English league’s only quarter-finalists.
However, if you take the English Premiership as a stand-alone competition it is a very competitive league, with little separating the ten clubs below Saracens and Exeter.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Saracens and Exeter have created their own gang of two inside the Premiership. Going into this weekend’s action Exeter, who were second in the table, were 12 points clear of Gloucester in third.
That was only one point fewer than the 13 points separating Gloucester and Newcastle Falcons who are in twelfth place at the bottom of the table. The difference between the relegation race this season and last is that it is likely to be a cliffhanger.
When London Irish were relegated last May they had only three wins across the full 22 matches, whereas Newcastle have won three of their nine matches already, as have the three teams just above them – Sale Sharks, Northampton, and Worcester Warriors.
The reality is that the second tier from Gloucester in third down to the bottom four are separated only by two wins. It has been a surprise to see Northampton down in the basement, but Friday night’s win moves them up to seventh with Dan Biggar now bedded-in at fly half. It’s also been a bit of a shock to see promoted Bristol in the middle of the table.
Under Pat Lam’s coaching Bristol have shown they are not dead certs to go straight back down. Lam showed his experience by taking Connacht – traditionally the weakest of the Irish provinces – to the PRO12 title in 2016.
It would take a brave man to predict who will lose the relegation race, especially as Newcastle have the same quality in their squad that they had last season when they finished fourth.
I thought the Falcons would stay in the top half of the league not only because of the attacking brand of rugby they have developed on their 4G pitch, but also because it is a difficult place for opponents to play. It is a rugby outpost with its own atmosphere despite Newcastle being mainly a football town.
The Kingston Park pitch is an advantage because Newcastle play on it all the time, whereas many Premiership clubs are less familiar with artificial surfaces. Another factor is that having been beaten by Edinburgh in both legs of their recent European Cup doubleheader they can focus fully on getting back up the table.
Newcastle will be hoping to ‘do an Exeter’. The Devon club are another outpost with a distinct home advantage. The Chiefs make the most of a Sandy Park pitch with a slight slope and regularly utilise the gusting wind.
I do not detect a huge difference in the way most teams in the Premiership play, with the majority of them going through the phases in order to break down the opposition defence. The biggest factor in deciding whether they are successful or not is how smart they are with the ball, and how much control they impose.
Both Exeter and Saracens execute better than the rest of their Premiership opponents. They are incredibly well-drilled, and after mounting presno sure by going through the phases they take their opportunities far more ruthlessly than other teams do. Exeter and Saracens have found how to constantly play well while the rest are inconsistent.
The only other team with a point of difference is Wasps, who are very attackminded. They still have an old-style cavalier approach where they run with the ball at every opportunity and are much more focused on outscoring the opposition than stopping them scoring.
It’s no surprise that with no clear relegation candidate all the uncertainty has made it a main topic of conversation, with talk again of ring-fencing the Premiership. The RFU’s acting chief executive, Nigel Melville, said recently that promotion and relegation will happen this season, and that changes require approval from the PGB and RFU Council. My view is that the promotionrelegation argument will go on for ever matter what decision is finally made because, in rugby terms, it is as big as Brexit. I was a staunch supporter of promotion-relegation, but lean more now towards not having it because of the merits I believe it will bring for the national side and the welfare of players
Another idea that has been floated is changing the Premiership structure into one with two conferences rather than a single league.
What occurs to me is that conferences will mean more easy games because there are not enough good players in England, or around the world, to make a super-competitive structure with seven or eight teams in each conference.
Another problem is that the Championship is not competitive enough, with a vast gap between the clubs at the top and the bottom. So, would there be promotion and relegation, to and from the conferences?
As a skeleton idea it falls short of the Premiership as it exists at the moment. The idea that I do quite like is extending the Premiership to 13 teams, because it would give the clubs a week off during the season, and player welfare is becoming an increasingly important topic.
A good starting point would be clubs getting their international players to play 15 games a season for them. That number of games in the European Cup and the Premiership sounds about right with international matches on top.
The issues are not just the physicality but also the mental demands of analysing teams and talking rugby all the time. Most players need the leeway to switch off, chill out, re-boot, come back and switch on.
The new injection of money into the professional game with the announcement of the CVC £200m deal with the Premiership is great news. However, whether it will help player wellness and welfare remains to be seen.
Agents will already be thinking, ‘wow, this looks good’, and the talk about Elliot Daly moving to Saracens from Wasps sums it up. If he joins Saracens then you would think they have to be pushing the salary cap ceiling all the way.
So, for those who are saying that it will be policed and spent on infrastructure rather than on player wages, all I can say is good luck in making that happen.
It ought to happen because clubs are paying their internationals too much. England players are paid well enough at the moment not to contemplate going anywhere else. They are on good club salaries, good international match fees, and there is money from sponsorship endorsements.
While an England regular why would you go to France and earn about 70 per cent of what you are being paid now, when you can live at home, speak your own language, and be close to your family and friends?