This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the – or so it feels – annual ‘so where does it all go now’ discussion…
Joining the dots
Although we all like to dream and think big, it feels a little idle to presume that a saviour is going to ride a white horse laden with cashbags to bail out either Newcastle Falcons or Welsh rugby at the moment. It also feels, after the thrills and spills of the Six Nations, that the domestic leagues – if you can call a league that involves a trans-equator trip domestic – are a little anti-climactic with many an international player taking a well-earned rest. The Champions Cup knockout round is now on the radar, further relegating domestic issues into the realms of squad rotation for some of the clubs.
Meanwhile, upstairs in England, the administration has survived a revolution but with 1/3 of the voters actively naffed off and half of the overall possible voters not even bothered to do so, you get a mixed picture of contentment in English rugby at the moment. That’s really only a sixth of all stakeholders actively voting for immediate change, but it was also only a third actively giving the current administration a vote of confidence. Apathy and acrimony then, not just the latter.
In Wales, there is simply depression. The WRU needs something, but it’s hard to pinpoint what, beyond using the word ‘everything’, or perhaps the usual cliché of ‘major overhaul’. The Dragons’ existence is perhaps more perilous than Newcastle’s; but only three Welsh teams in the URC next season is nobody’s idea of progress, while no coaches at all on the Lions’ ticket is a real body blow.
England’s problems would be less real if perhaps there were someone lined up to replace Newcastle, should the Falcons fade away. But with Ealing, who have tornadoed through the Championship this season, singularly denied promotion to the Premiership, or even the shot at promotion play-off, by dint of reasons which have been privately referred to both as ‘drivel’ and, more disturbingly, ‘changed’ from those originally agreed to. The closed shop has never felt so close.
Bill Sweeney is said to have told Ealing owner Sir Mike Gooley that it would cost Ealing a further GBP 30m to get the club up to Premiership level; considering Newcastle are struggling to finance a team in a league with a salary cap less than a quarter of that, it’s a ridiculous number if true. Even more ridiculous is the theory that Worcester could casually pay off a load of creditors and simply plop back into the Championship. A league into which you can buy your way is nobody’s idea of a level playing field, nor encouraging to ambition.
So where does it all go? Let’s assume a worst-case scenario where both Newcastle and the Dragons cease and Ealing can’t persuade the RFU that their claims are legitimate. That leaves 12 teams in England and Wales and 12 in the rest URC, which has a symmetry which is hard to ignore and much easier to fit into a coherent fixture calendar. It might leave more room for a better version of the Champions Cup, too, not to mention a cleaner split from the three leagues. And if the shop is to be closed, at least it would feel like the shop was closed around financially viable operations.
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There’s not much skinny coming out of Wales about changes domestically, but the clamour for change in England is loud. Perhaps Mr. Sweeney can return to his original idea alluded to last week in which the RFU is separated into operational parts with different responsibilities – one for the pro game, one for the amateur, one for Twickenham management and so on – rather than having the whole of the club landscape reliant on a professional model that is still creaking and the money generated by the national team. That would at least devolve the governance and empower those who asked for the change to actively participate in it.
And although the idea has repeatedly been poo-pooed, the concept of an Anglo-Welsh league is unlikely to disappear completely from view while existing structures continue to wobble. As a marketable asset, it’s hard to refute the potential.
The winds of change continue to swirl. Nothing damaged yet, but the storm is still approaching. If Newcastle does go under, it would be a trigger; what Mr. Sweeney does in response to the uprising, beyond seeing it voted down, should be both respectful of the dissatisfaction of so many and contingent to such worst-case scenarios. That pay package will look all the worse if another club goes under, while a nine-team Premiership will not sustain an elite international team for long.
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/loose-pass-england-and-wales-on-the-cusp-of-worst-case-scenario-as-storm-approaches
