Hill’s happy among best of part-timers
RICHMOND director of rugby Steve Hill sees no way of bridging the gap between Premiership and Championship and predicts more Tier 2 clubs will go part-time.
Hill, right, says English rugby cannot afford two professional leagues and questions “where the money will come from” to narrow the divide while admitting Richmond have no desire to ever push for the Premiership again.
Hill says: “My personal opinion is there is not enough money in the game for two full-time professional leagues in this country. The RFU can’t afford to pay for it; the clubs can’t afford to pay for it so where does the money come from?”
Under Hill’s guidance Richmond returned to the Championship after being promoted last season, but the league is a different animal to the one they first entered in 2016.
Richmond were then one of only two part-time clubs in the league. This season they are one of seven, with Nottingham and Bedford notably having to change their business models to survive.
Hill said: “The last time we were in the Championship it was ten full-time clubs. It is now only five full-time, that’s the direction of travel.
“There will be more part-time clubs in the Championship, making it the top level of non-fulltime rugby. This is the league Richmond want to be in. We don’t have any ambition to go full-time, the club tried that 25 years ago and it didn’t work financially so we want to be in the top league of clubs that are not full-time.
“We’re there at the moment and we don’t want to just survive, we want to thrive there, so it means performances like our recent win against Jersey Reds we have to do more often.”
Richmond celebrated their part-time ethos by putting their players’ full-time jobs alongside their names in the programme for the recent clash with the mighty Saracens.
Hill is proud of the effort from his players and their willingness to receive reduced match fees which has enabled Richmond to compete this season. London Scottish, for example, chose not to take part in the campaign after the cuts to RFU funding from £455,000 per club per season, to just £80,000. Hill said: “Things like the players taking a huge pay-cut in match fees in order for the club to be able to afford playing in the Championship this season goes to show how much they wanted to play. “At least five or six times I told them a potential start date for the league through January and February but we ended up having a 39-week preseason which was really difficult.
“The players earned a really hardfought promotion last year from
National
One and wanted to play in the Championship and the chance to go up against sides like Saracens and Ealing.
“We will, like all clubs in the Championship, make a huge loss this season. But we felt that we’re a rugby club and there’s a chance to play rugby and if we can do it then we will do it.”