Always a Wasp
General Category => Wasps Rugby Discussion => Topic started by: Neils on April 24, 2023, 07:14:55 AM
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CHRIS FOY: English club rugby is fading in front of our eyes https://mol.im/a/12005357 via https://dailym.ai/android
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He's spot on IMHO.
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Surely the 'Premiership' will become totally sterile? There will be no need for players to move clubs at all - until they retire, that is. How very boring!
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Spot on for me. I?m coming to the end of my BT contract. It won?t be renewed. I?ve caught the odd game - contested by the same teams as the weekend before - the punditry team try to jazz it up but it?s terribly flat. The games in and of themselves aren?t terrible - they just mean nothing as Foy says. Everyone knows the cheats have it in the bag and no one can really buy into it being a tense scrap to decide who loses to them in the semi. The game is in trouble - not least because those in power are some of the most clueless around.
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Spot on for me. I?m coming to the end of my BT contract. It won?t be renewed. I?ve caught the odd game - contested by the same teams as the weekend before - the punditry team try to jazz it up but it?s terribly flat. The games in and of themselves aren?t terrible - they just mean nothing as Foy says. Everyone knows the cheats have it in the bag and no one can really buy into it being a tense scrap to decide who loses to them in the semi. The game is in trouble - not least because those in power are some of the most clueless around.
Very much agree.
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I looked at the table yesterday and thought BT must be fuming that they?re going in to the last games of the league season without a single match to get excited about. I don?t regret cancelling my BT Sport and broadband subscription.
What value the TV rights at the next round of bidding? Even if the Prem and RFU offer so thing with relegation and promotion they?ve shown they can?t be trusted if it compromises and threatens the cosy elites of the Premiership.
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I looked at the table yesterday and thought BT must be fuming that they?re going in to the last games of the league season without a single match to get excited about. I don?t regret cancelling my BT Sport and broadband subscription.
What value the TV rights at the next round of bidding? Even if the Prem and RFU offer so thing with relegation and promotion they?ve shown they can?t be trusted if it compromises and threatens the cosy elites of the Premiership.
It will be interesting when they become TNT Sport in a month or so what their assessment moving forward will be.
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I would be interested in hearing some comment from those who were arguing that no relegation would "free teams up to play exciting rugby" & other such fanciful nonsense. Quite a few on here were of that opinion, wonder if any will own up?
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For the ignorant (ie: me) how does anyone get selected to be on the RFU? Friends? Pl d boys/farts network? Just curiosity. Not that I'm thinking of applying.
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Sorry .... 'P ld' should read 'Old '.
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Cannot disagree with this at all. No jeopardy, little passion and very little interest from clubs not under the threat of relegation.
Premiership rugby has become very vanilla. If there was promotion and relegation, the excitement of a growing club such as Ealing making the step up next season, whilst watching teams like Newcastle and Gloucester fight tooth and nail to avoid the drop, we would be watching it. But there is not and so we are not. And as such I will be cancelling my BT membership as it is no longer value for money.
English rugby is dying, it needs to change. A 10 team protected league will only hasten its demise.
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France Top 14 has promotion/relegation and appears to be in robust health and on the way to possibly winning the WC. English Prem League sickly and looking unlikely to survive. Nuff said.....
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France Top 14 has promotion/relegation and appears to be in robust health and on the way to possibly winning the WC. English Prem League sickly and looking unlikely to survive. Nuff said.....
Very +1
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AND they've got Shaun.
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See the thread about why the game is thriving in France.
The idea of Summer rugby has merit, but the entire structure of pro rugby in England needs tearing down and rebuilding. The RFU is unfit for purpose, and the club v country situation with the PRL is designed to weaken both clubs and the national side.
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See the thread about why the game is thriving in France.
The idea of Summer rugby has merit, but the entire structure of pro rugby in England needs tearing down and rebuilding. The RFU is unfit for purpose, and the club v country situation with the PRL is designed to weaken both clubs and the national side.
The RFU has not been fit for purpose ever since the game turned professional in 1995.
The abyss has grows wider every year.
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The RFU is about as fit for purpose at the CBI. Both are relics from a bygone era.
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For the ignorant (ie: me) how does anyone get selected to be on the RFU? Friends? Pl d boys/farts network? Just curiosity. Not that I'm thinking of applying.
It used to be, and probably still is, that RFU Council members were nominated by each individual county, so Bucks, Berks, Ox, Warks, Worcs etc would nominate a council member each. These would have been through and through community rugby people, each one having been elected as a council member by the clubs in that county, and were the 57 old farts Will Carling referred to.
According to Camquin in the other place, a modernization of the RFU's decision making process resulted in all the power effectively given to the RFU executive with the Council rubber stamping their decisions. It was the Executive that dilly dallied at the start of the professional era and ceded control of the Premier League to PRL and the rest is history.
Now this is a sentence I did not expect to write - if this history is correct, the Blazers are not to blame....
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Indeed.
The county reps at HQ tended to be long standing members of that county, having served as chairmen, VPs, Presidents of their county.
I knew one guy particularly well - Peter Trunkfied. Peter was a great guy. Very dry sense of humour. I had the priviledge of playing alongside Peter a fews times. He was president of my club - Marlow. Was Bucks President and ultimately President of the RFU in 1998/9.
He was president when our beloved LBND was victim of the tabloid sting.
The county reps do some good stuff for the good of the amateur game.
The executive however, have not got a clue about developing the best blueprint for the professional game at both club and international level.
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All of this ignores the fact that Women's rugby in England, governed by the same RFU is thriving & leading the way in professionalism & innovation.
I know its a very different game & there's no powerful club structure or rich patrons to argue with, but it does show what can be done!
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Women's rugby isn't the plaything of sugar daddy owners (ie the PRL) - yet!
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Unfortunately I think it is. A minimum requirement in the new tender process included developing a professional coaching resource to support players in training throughout the week so just look at some the teams for 23/24: Bristol Bears Women, Exeter Rugby Club, Ealing Trainfinders Women, Gloucester-Hartpury Women?s RFC , Harlequins FC, Leicester Tigers, Loughborough Lightning/Northampton Saints, Sale Women, Saracens. Worcester are the odd ones out.
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All of this ignores the fact that Women's rugby in England, governed by the same RFU is thriving & leading the way in professionalism & innovation.
I know its a very different game & there's no powerful club structure or rich patrons to argue with, but it does show what can be done!
Isn't that the one thing they have learned from the way they, to quote Egret, 'dilly dallied' when the men went professional, by getting in 1st with the women going pro.
It's obvious when you look at the difference between the home nations that the professionalism that has existed for a number of years in England is very much lacking in the others.
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I would be interested in hearing some comment from those who were arguing that no relegation would "free teams up to play exciting rugby" & other such fanciful nonsense. Quite a few on here were of that opinion, wonder if any will own up?
I'll admit I was on the fence about the ring-fencing (sorry wasn't deliberate), but the situation that was being discussed at the time is very different to what it is today.
At that point it was currently a 13 team Premiership expanding to 14 with, very probably Ealing, who were about the only team in the Championship interested. If you look at the top half at the end of this season, Jersey, Ealing, Coventry, Bedford, Pirates & Doncaster, only 2 of them applied for approval for stadiums to move to the Prem, Ealing and Doncaster. Given the opportunity I'd guess Pirates would like to move up and possibly Hartpury but of the rest of the league I'm not sure there is much interest.
That 14 team league is a very different prospect to the 11, possibly 10 team league (or less) that is now the status. Again not saying I wanted a closed league but I could see some rational, for me that rational has gone with the demise of Wasps and Worcester, the fact they won't approve Ealing to get promoted means it would potentially be a much weaker league.
Something I think has been proved out by the completely pointless final round and the big disadvantage that Saints now have of not playing any rugby for weeks.