A small, self-serving elite which bars all others from access

BEFORE the creation of club leagues in 1987, a group of around 24 self-appointed leading clubs played against each other (plus frequent fixtures against Welsh clubs) with little chance of other English clubs breaking in. Lancashire’s Orrell were the only club who managed to cross the invisible barrier; no others managed it.

Luckily a logically-formatted and well-supported county stage enabled players such as Bill Beaumont, Tony Neary, Mike Slemen, Wade Dooley, Mike Harrison and others to reach the top while playing for clubs outside the self-appointed elite.

The top English clubs were initially totally opposed to club leagues, fearing that they had nothing to gain and plenty to lose by way of possible relegation. Yet once leagues were established, they soon appreciated that, if there was no proper domestic representative stage through which candidates for top honours from clubs in lower leagues could progress, England internationals could only come from within their ranks. The county stage which had brought Beaumont and company to the fore was allowed to wither away.

When the game went open in 1995, the clubs in the top league became even more jealous of safeguarding their status and a set of arbitrary entry conditions to the Premiership was put in place. English rugby then had an even smaller closed shop than pre-1987, yet had no proper representative stage alongside to enable players to progress from clubs outside the top tier.

Pressure from Premiership clubs for official ring-fencing has succeeded and English rugby now has the worst of all worlds – a small and self-serving elite, yet no stepping-stone for the best players at clubs outside that elite; nor for any clubs with Premiership ambitions.