NICK CAIN

The Championship clubs appear to be in no mood for turning, typified by their stand-off with an RFU bureaucracy headed by chief executive Bill Sweeney and performance director Conor O’Shea.
The RFU duo’s attempts to force a franchise model on the second tier clubs, while permanently scrapping the principle of promotion-relegation, has hardened their resolve and survival instincts.
The Championship owners do not buy the bogus argument being put forward by the RFU that the size of the investments made by Premiership owners, while exercising total freedom of choice, entitles them to...