NICK CAIN
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AT the same time as Bath collapsed to a record 64-0 defeat against Gloucester last weekend, Premiership Rugby's propaganda machine was working overtime to spin the message that theirs is the most entertaining, competitive league on the planet. The virtues of basketball rugby were being extolled to the heavens with try counts, points totals and bonus points, the altars at which the Premiership's comms department worships.
Bucketloads of tries scored in no-contest games reminiscent of those that brought Super Rugby to its knees are, in Premiership rugby's motheaten prayer book, the peak of entertainment, the panacea for all the ills the rank mismanagement of the elite league has spawned.
For those marvelling at Gloucester's unanswered 10-try haul, Leicester's 30-point crushing of Bristol, Worcester's 22-point drubbing by Saracens, or Wasps late defensive collapse squandering a 25-point lead to gift London Irish a 42-42 draw, it is time for a reality check.
First in the queue should be the Premiership's chief executive, Simon Massie-Taylor. Incredibly, Massie-Taylor tried to sidestep the massive 64-0, 56-26, and 38-16 mismatches by trumpeting in the Daily Telegraph this week that, “our USP is still the Premiership's competitiveness”.
If Massie-Taylor wants a crash course in what a truly competitive league looks like he should watch a couple of Top 14 games, starting with the recent Toulouse matches against La Rochelle and Toulon. The Premiership boast of being the most hard-fought league in the world is sounding hollow as it embarks on a downward trajectory as a semi-competitive three tier closed shop in which overall standards are declining.
While Leicester, Saracens and Harlequins have bucked the trend, and will ensure that the Premiership ends with competitive play-offs and final – the first two by maintaining disciplined hard-hitting defences, and Quins by outscoring most of the teams below them – the remainder have lacked the rigour to challenge them.
This applies to a second tier of six clubs, including Exeter, who have dipped in terms of the forward power and back line incisiveness which has made them perpetual title holders, or contenders, in recent seasons. We can add to that Northampton, whose setpiece is not up to European Cup quality, and Gloucester, Sale, London Irish, and Wasps, whose inconsistency has marked them all as works in progress.
It brings us to the tail-end tier of Bristol – who are 17 league points below Wasps – and Newcastle, Worcester and Bath, who are 27 points, or more, adrift of the nine clubs above them. That is not a competitive template, and it explains why Wasps, Northampton, Exeter, Bristol, Bath, and even champions Harlequins, failed to fire in the European Cup.
Beneath the Premiership the English club game is a mess, with aspiration and motivation throttled by a combination of funding being cut to the bone, and the ring-fencing block on promotion, with ground criteria again manipulated to prevent Championship winners Ealing going up.
The contrast with France is stark, and no-one is fooled by RFU and Premiership arguments that the most effective aspects of the league structure across the Channel are non-transferable. The French club game is booming, with a well-organised, vibrant nationwide league structure in which promotion-relegation is embedded, coming to a climax now with play-offs galvanising players and supporters throughout the country.
“The French club game is booming, with a vibrant league structure”
Unlike England, France has three fully professional leagues in the Top 14, ProD2, and Nationale 1, which are underpinned by lucrative broadcast and sponsorship deals, and stringent salary cap and financial administration.
French rugby can now also boast a semi-pro fourth league with Federale 1 – or Division 4 – about to be launched as a 24-team competition. One of the clubs which has qualified already for the new league is Perigueux, who are coached by Richard Hill, the former Bath and England scrum-half.
Hill has already made his name in France by winning multiple promotions to take Rouen into ProD2. Perigueux, which is a town in the Dordogne with a population of barely 30,000, is now in a position to reach for the sky in terms of its rugby future.
Yet, many of the clubs in England's fourth division – National 2 North and South – dwarf Perigueux in terms of population, and catchment area for players. Huddersfield (162,000), Harrogate (75,000), Canterbury (166,000), Worthing (110,000), Redruth (55,000) are cases in point.
However, while Perigueux can aspire to become one of the top clubs in France, those in England's National 2 North and South –from which Hull and Esher have just won promotion to National 1 – know that the Championship is as far as they can go because of Premiership ring-fencing.
Yet, despite the blockage in the arteries of the league system caused by the Premiership, there are still signs that the English community game has a heartbeat, and it was emphasised by the 3,000 crowd at Caldy for the Wirral club's National 1 showdown with rivals Sale FC, which saw them clinch promotion to the Championship.
Caldy won 13-9 in a fiercely competitive contest, and no-one cared that the scoreboard was not falling off its hinges after having to clock ten tries and a hundred points.
Massie-Taylor says that ring-fencing has not “made any substantive difference” this season. He will have great difficulty convincing Caldy, Esher, or Hull, of the merits of a closed shop. As for the French, the shoulders would go up in a shrug of disbelief.
