Welcome to a new season where the Prem ring-fencers’ idea of progress was not only to shut the door on their Champ “partners” participating in the Prem Cup, but also give the aspiring clubs in England’s second tier a slap in the face this week by revealing their bid for two Welsh regions to join the Premiership cartel of 10.
The joke is that if the Prem clubs had given their Championship counterparts even a sliver of encouragement over the last 15 years they could have had the likes of Coventry, Cornish Pirates, Bedford, Nottingham, Doncaster, and Ealing ready to go in an expanded English t...