This Might have been missed - BT want Rebate

[WonkyWasp]

They never took the loyalty, the affection or the love of the fans into account when evaluating the outcome of  their 10-team target.  They either ignored our reaction or (blindly) didn't think there would be any reaction.  They just never regarded the fans at all.  They never imagined that at least 90% would be lost to the Premiership, or worse.  They didn't account for loyalty or human nature.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

They didn't account for loyalty or human nature.

The classic problem with British management since the 1950s. I call it the 'accountant syndrome' (not wishing to cast all bean counters in this light, but ...). They collectively destroyed most of British industry.

[Neils]

They didn't account for loyalty or human nature.

The classic problem with British management since the 1950s. I call it the 'accountant syndrome' (not wishing to cast all bean counters in this light, but ...). They collectively destroyed most of British industry.

And are continuing to do so.

[WonkyWasp]

Erm .... not all of them!!  Many are quite the reverse, tho' I agree some aren't. 

[InBetweenWasp]

Have any players commented on the less teams stuff?


If there's to be 10 teams instead of 13, then that's 18 league games per season rather than 24.


A quarter less games, a quarter less salary

Or, a quarter fewer games, enabling smaller squad sizes and similar salaries...

- Players get paid similar wages to now but play fewer games
- Clubs reduce their overall Wage bill by reducing squad size
- Reduced cap but increased number of teams across two divisions still means plenty of employment opportunities for players

[Rifleman Harris]

Have any players commented on the less teams stuff?


If there's to be 10 teams instead of 13, then that's 18 league games per season rather than 24.


A quarter less games, a quarter less salary

Or, a quarter fewer games, enabling smaller squad sizes and similar salaries...

- Players get paid similar wages to now but play fewer games
- Clubs reduce their overall Wage bill by reducing squad size
- Reduced cap but increased number of teams across two divisions still means plenty of employment opportunities for players

Personally I think the 2 division approach is dead in the water already.  If they wanted to do it, they should have started plans and implementation when Warriors went under, nevermind us.  Two 10 team divisions with Wasps, Warriors, Irish, Ealing is a different proposition to one with Ealing, Nottingham, Doncaster etc.  That chance has passed as Warriors and Wasps are in no position to do anything now and the gap between the 'top 10, and the rest is too big to bridge.  All you would get is the same couple of teams being promoted and relegated for years. 

[InBetweenWasp]

Personally I think the 2 division approach is dead in the water already.  If they wanted to do it, they should have started plans and implementation when Warriors went under, nevermind us.  Two 10 team divisions with Wasps, Warriors, Irish, Ealing is a different proposition to one with Ealing, Nottingham, Doncaster etc.  That chance has passed as Warriors and Wasps are in no position to do anything now and the gap between the 'top 10, and the rest is too big to bridge.  All you would get is the same couple of teams being promoted and relegated for years.

What do you think will happen if/when other teams start to fold in a ring-fenced 10 team league?

I think there's probably not much between the bottom 5 of the Prem and Top 5 of the Championship - especially if you were to factor in some form of return for Wasps/Irish/Warriors (unlikely to be all 3).  Certainly for the first few years I think you'd see the same suspects bouncing back/forth between the two divisions, but suspect that changes in time.  With reduced barriers to entry from current Champ > Prem, I think you could see teams build to push for promotion - i.e. do away with minimum 10k seater stadia for promotion and that makes promotion tremendously costly for teams and ends up in a situation where they're either forced to spend and develop to have a stadium other the theshold, but not filled or have to rent a stadium and do away with a significant portion of their income.

[Rifleman Harris]

Personally I think the 2 division approach is dead in the water already.  If they wanted to do it, they should have started plans and implementation when Warriors went under, nevermind us.  Two 10 team divisions with Wasps, Warriors, Irish, Ealing is a different proposition to one with Ealing, Nottingham, Doncaster etc.  That chance has passed as Warriors and Wasps are in no position to do anything now and the gap between the 'top 10, and the rest is too big to bridge.  All you would get is the same couple of teams being promoted and relegated for years.

What do you think will happen if/when other teams start to fold in a ring-fenced 10 team league?

I think there's probably not much between the bottom 5 of the Prem and Top 5 of the Championship - especially if you were to factor in some form of return for Wasps/Irish/Warriors (unlikely to be all 3).  Certainly for the first few years I think you'd see the same suspects bouncing back/forth between the two divisions, but suspect that changes in time.  With reduced barriers to entry from current Champ > Prem, I think you could see teams build to push for promotion - i.e. do away with minimum 10k seater stadia for promotion and that makes promotion tremendously costly for teams and ends up in a situation where they're either forced to spend and develop to have a stadium other the theshold, but not filled or have to rent a stadium and do away with a significant portion of their income.

I wasn't thinking ringfenced, I was thinking that it's too little too late to implement.  I think Irish are the only ones with a modicum of a chance of taking part in a set up with 2 leagues, and the remaining championship clubs aren't strong enough without a strongish Wasps / Worcester /Irish competing.   You need more strong teams in the second tier than there are promotion places so there is always a core of higher standard teams who would raise the overall standard.  I don't think rugby has the time for 10 plus years of seeing the same clubs yo-yoing, so you need to force the improvement and losing 3 clubs like we have seen makes that so much harder.   I think there is a big gap between Exeter, Bath, Bristol, Gloucester and Newcastle and Jersey, Ealing, Coventry, Bedford and Cornish Pirates.  I can't see many of the last 5 taking many points off the first 5. 

In theory I think the 2 league set up would have been a good idea if they had started it 2 years ago when you could have had 3 'strong' premiership teams in there, particularly if there were only 1 or maybe 2 promotion spots.  That would have provided some strength in depth in the second tier and helped develop the other clubs, but it's too late now.  One solution may be to in the first season have 5 up / 5 down with the Premiership and 5 down 2 up from the tier below (to get 10 in the championship with a mix of teams), then revert to 1 up one down both to the Premiership and the tier below.  At least that would give the current championship sides 5 years to compete, which may be enough for Jersey and Ealing at least. That requires sufficient funding for the tier 2 division so that the 5 Premiership sides down see it as oblivion though, so it's a non-starter, but I think it would work. That first season would be very exciting too!

[backdoc]

They didn't account for loyalty or human nature.

The classic problem with British management since the 1950s. I call it the 'accountant syndrome' (not wishing to cast all bean counters in this light, but ...). They collectively destroyed most of British industry.

And are continuing to do so.

With an annual output of ?183 billion, the UK is the ninth largest manufacturing nation in the world.

[Rossm]

They didn't account for loyalty or human nature.

The classic problem with British management since the 1950s. I call it the 'accountant syndrome' (not wishing to cast all bean counters in this light, but ...). They collectively destroyed most of British industry.

And are continuing to do so.

With an annual output of ?183 billion, the UK is the ninth largest manufacturing nation in the world.

I don't know what that relatively means🤯🤯 Is it good or bad???

[NellyWellyWaspy]

In the late 1960s, UK Manufacturing Output was over 40% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

By the early 1900s that was down to around 15%.

It is now close to half of that.

Why is that important?

1. The less you make, the more you import.
2. You have less security of supply in times of shortage and/or war.
3. In the labour market, some workers simply do not have the ability to be upskilled to the service sector, and need the jobs that manufacturing would give, and with a reduction in manufacturing you create a pool of unwanted labour, which is persistently unemployed and requiring social welfare support. You cannot do what countless politicians try to imply is possible, and force all young people through an education system predicated on high levels of the '3 Rs'. It is a nonsense to suggest that ability to pass examinations is not represented by a normal distribution curve. In effect, the loss of manufacturing has disenfranchised a complete section of society. Struggle to read? Can't get a job, can't get a driving licence, and so on. So, far too many of the disenfranchised, who have nothing to lose, not only burden the Social State financially and economically, but they become anti-social, with each generation worse than the one before. It is a nonsense to suggest that all those without jobs can be retrained.
4. In the service sector, as more countries also make the same switch, it is a race to the bottom on prices. Wages fall, the rich get richer. Social inequality increases.

Why then, would a government choose to make reduction of manufacturing a goal? The UK government has (in effect if not by design) done so since the days of Margaret Thatcher.

A. Upper management in industry was primarily (generally) staffed by upper class idiots who couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery.
B. Manufacturing never really recovered from WW2, and desperately needed a LOT of money to modernize, and the money lenders of the City of London were not willing to lend to them. UK plc was in a REALLY bad way by 1970.
C. Manufacturing used a lot of energy and raw materials, meaning the UK would need to invest heavily in power stations, power lines, and mining. Again, there was not a willingness to do this.
D. Manufacturing is dirty (for the environment) - ask the Chinese if you don't believe that.
E. Manufacturing needs long and medium term planning, something politicians (and civil servants) are notoriously bad at.

[Shugs]

Other people are prepared to do it cheaper = other people get to do it.

[westwaleswasp]

On manufacturing, like education, the whole system is populated by pseudo scientific  data driven bullshit, populated with logical  syllogisms where the major tennet is false but it us in nobody's interest to say so.
You then spend your time having meetings about productivity, spend your time listening to the latest 'upskillers'  speaking in meaningless neologisms,  creating more meaningless positions to manage, because that is what managers do, because with people to manage, managers become indispensable.
The blunt truth is more people talking=less people doing. Sack or promote half your workforce and you don't have anyone to do the fucking job. You then spend the next ten years trying to catch up on the backlog you created, instituting programs of constant change to reinstate what you did fifteen years ago whilst pretending the wheel has been reinvented. Anyone who tells you that you can have constant improvement is bullshitting.
The optimum wheel shape was established 2000 plus years ago. Universities are classic examples, you either go big, and the VC says ' we need more cross department activity so we merge them to get the best creative thinking without boundaries'  or you go to small departments and the VC says 'we need to be agile, responsive and flexible'.
Sadly rugby has a lot of people who have made themselves indispensable whilst doing the square root of fuck all.

[Shugs]

Spot on WWW. Enjoyed that.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

On manufacturing, like education, the whole system is populated by pseudo scientific  data driven bullshit, populated with logical  syllogisms where the major tennet is false but it us in nobody's interest to say so.
You then spend your time having meetings about productivity, spend your time listening to the latest 'upskillers'  speaking in meaningless neologisms,  creating more meaningless positions to manage, because that is what managers do, because with people to manage, managers become indispensable.
The blunt truth is more people talking=less people doing. Sack or promote half your workforce and you don't have anyone to do the fucking job. You then spend the next ten years trying to catch up on the backlog you created, instituting programs of constant change to reinstate what you did fifteen years ago whilst pretending the wheel has been reinvented. Anyone who tells you that you can have constant improvement is bullshitting.
The optimum wheel shape was established 2000 plus years ago. Universities are classic examples, you either go big, and the VC says ' we need more cross department activity so we merge them to get the best creative thinking without boundaries'  or you go to small departments and the VC says 'we need to be agile, responsive and flexible'.
Sadly rugby has a lot of people who have made themselves indispensable whilst doing the square root of fuck all.

😂🤣😂🤣