The Premiership is an ailing league - but relegation would be a step in the right direction
A look at the Top 14 and Brive illustrates that the landscape improves financially and culturally with jeopardy at the foot of the table
CHARLES RICHARDSON
RUGBY REPORTER
3 May 2023 ? 11:46am
Charles Richardson
Falcons wing Mateo Carreras reacts on the final whistle after the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between Newcastle Falcons and Northampton Saints
At the end of the domestic season, barring late drama that even the unpredictably of France would struggle to muster, Brive will be relegated to the second division of French rugby, the Pro D2, after four consecutive seasons in the Top 14.
This season has been one of strife for Brive. While they have enjoyed significant investment from an English billionaire, Ian Osborne, the team has been rooted to the bottom of the Top 14 table, having won just six of their 23 fixtures. In October last year, too, the club's head coach - former Lion Jeremy Davidson - was relieved of his duties.
In the past 10 seasons, Brive have never finished above eighth in the Top 14. In that period, there have been two promotions from the ProD2, a bottom-placed finish - with another sure to follow this year - a season in 12th and two in 11th.
Every year, Brive find themselves in a relegation dogfight. And yet, in this town of 50,000, the average attendance at the Stade Am?d?e-Domenech was last season just shy of 10,000. Almost a fifth of the town's population regularly turn out to watch its rugby team, despite the fact they will invariably lose.
As Simon Gillham, the English president of Brive will protest, one of the primary reasons is the threat of relegation, with which comes competition, jeopardy and drama. Rugby and sport metamorphose into theatre and, without an amphitheatre to speak of and with Brive's chances of silverware slim at best, a fight for survival is about as close as the Brivistes get to the gladiatorial spectacles of Rome.
Turkeys voting for Christmas springs to mind. But Gillham and Brive are wise enough to see the bigger picture. The added draw to the league - and to their club - with the presence of relegation. There is simply no way that Brive's average attendance would come close to 10,000 were it not for the stories and stimulation spat out of a league thrust into the maelstrom of the trapdoor.
Brive are perennial relegation candidates but that does not mean fans do not want to see them play
Scenarios like the final round of the Premiership, taking place this weekend, where there is barely anything riding on the final set of results, would require an extraordinary set of circumstances to be mirrored in France. The same could have been said, once upon a time, in the English game. Instead we have had to suffer the insipidness of the last few rounds - barring London Irish's visit to Saracens - have been desperately lacking in intrigue and verve. In banishing automatic relegation in perpetuity - it is understood that, in the future, the closest English rugby fans will come to relegation is a play-off - and ring-fencing the league, the Premiership has failed to realise that the concept it fears most is actually what it sorely lacks.
Gillham's point about attendance can be extrapolated across the Channel. Newcastle were demolished 66-5 at Kingston Park in the previous round of the Premiership, under Friday night lights. The attendance was 6,847. The year that the Falcons were last relegated, in 2019, they faced a Friday-night quasi-relegation decider in the same month of the year against Leicester. The attendance that night was 8,292, only 2,000 short of capacity. When one factors in that Newcastle currently possess two of the most exhilarating players in the league - Adam Radwan and Mateo Carreras - the evidence stacks even further in favour of relegation.
The Premiership in its current guise is an ailing league. The initial justification for the introduction of ring-fencing was to allow the Premiership clubs to get their financial houses in order. It clearly worked wonders, with just the two clubs plunged into administration this season and another, London Irish, confirmed on Tuesday to have failed to pay their staff for the month of April.
The failure of London Irish to pay wages in April is another illustration that ring-fencing the top flight has not been a roaring success
The failure of London Irish to pay wages in April is another illustration that ring-fencing the top flight has not been a roaring success CREDIT: Getty Images/David Rogers
So, if the inception of ring-fencing has done little to stabilise clubs' finances, then what is the point of it? Of course, dropping from the Premiership to the Championship presents a significant financial burden for any club, but the bigger picture is that the entire English domestic rugby landscape improves - both financially and culturally - with jeopardy at the foot of the table.
The one anomaly between Brive's situation and any would-be relegated team in the Premiership is that the French second tier is far stronger than its English equivalent. Brive will be dropping down into a competitive, popular league, full of tribalism, fanaticism and, most pertinently, professionalism. The Premiership pulling a rabbit out of the hat and announcing the return of promotion and relegation would be somewhat pointless, it is true, but the wheels have to be set in motion now for the future of professional rugby in England.
Most cash-strapped Championship clubs would be eaten alive in the top flight, but the Rugby Football Union needs to start recognising the worth in streamlining the two leagues, rather than viewing their respective values as individual entities. Although the Premiership has its own governing body, the leagues need to be assessed as a package; increasing funding to, for example, Nottingham would improve the second tier, which would make both leagues more competitive, increase their popularity, increase their standard, and increase the standard of the average English international.
In ordinary circumstances, fans, media and clubs would be gearing up for a Premiership round like no other, with all matches kicking off in unison. Instead, the sole attraction for the neutral is whether Bristol or Bath can claim eighth place in the table and with it a Champions Cup spot.
How much is a flight to Brive?
Topic: Talking Article on Relegation (Read 1337 times)
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