Brendan Gallagher: RFU Championship clubs face a vital strategy meeting

 Josh BassettLater this month the chairmen and owners of the 12 Championship clubs will lock themselves away in a Birmingham Hotel room with a pile of sandwiches and
gallons of coffee to discuss the future of their excellent if chronically under-appreciated and under-funded league.
This ‘blue-sky’ thinking in the depths of winter might prove to be just another talking shop but thank God somebody is taking the initiative because there is a distinct danger of one of ‘s most valuable resources going to waste.
The Championship has a huge amount going for it and used properly should be one of the pillars underpinning long-term England success, both in terms of feeding large numbers of quality players into the system and satisfying the ambition of those who dare to think big.
Additionally if the RFU are really serious in using RWC2015 to grow the game, a vibrant second professional league where new fans can support their local team and enjoy a very decent standard of entertainment the moment the ends would be a very good start.
A quick head count of current Premiership players shows 35 or so players who have made their way out of the Championship in the past couple of seasons and that is not even taking into account the growing number of ‘dual registrations’, more of which anon. Cornish Pirates, on a modest budget, have produced an entire team of Premiership players, a veritable conveyor belt, while are not far behind them. Over the course of the last 18 months a regular Championship fan will also have watched a good proportion of those young tyros who contributed to England’s U20 World Cup triumph.
This is a league waiting impatiently to be let off the leash and to be shown a bit more respect. You sense one or two of them long for the old knock-out cup and a pop at their so-called betters.
The Premiership is happy enough to cream off the Championship’s best and farm out their own academy players to gain the game time they themselves can’t – or are unwilling – to offer but it’s difficult to see precisely what the Championship gets in return.
The Premiership’s default setting remains the desire to ring-fence their league and investment at the expense of others who share the same ambitions as themselves – which seems very odd given that seven of this year’s Premiership line-up have either launched or re-launched in the professional era from the Championship.
Logic suggests that the two leagues, clearly so closely related, should at least come under one umbrella organisation but, no, never the twain shall meet apparently. Logic has been binned.
Promotion to the Premiership is only allowed through gritted teeth and, as their hounding of London Welsh in 2012 demonstrated, if there is the slightest chance of denying a Championship club its rightful position in the top flight the Premiership will try to slam the door shut.
“When we get to Birmingham we need to start deciding exactly what we – the clubs and investors involved – really want out of this Championship and how we can change for the better,” says Bedford’s Geoff Irvine, the elected Championship chairman and their sole representative and voice on the Professional Game Board.
“At the moment we are still tied by the old ‘heads of agreement’ which has two and half years to run, but we need to start the forward planning now. We need to debate in which direction we want to go, be unanimous in what we decide and then argue our position as strongly as possible.
“Everything will be on the table. We need to take stock and consider what might be. We need to re-visit and clarify where we are on promotion and issues, the play-offs and have we got the right format and we need to assess our true financial value in an ever changing TV world.
“Long-term funding is always an issue and we need to look closely at the reality of our relationship with the Premiership which outwardly can look close, yet most of the time leaves us feeling complete outsiders.
“It made me chuckle the other day when somebody phoned to ask how the Championship would feel in the event of four Welsh regions being parachuted into the Premiership, the pinnacle of the English club game remember, ahead of us and what would be the implications for the Championship in terms of promotion and relegation.
“All hypothetical I know but I can assure you we would be the last to know!”
The only comparable model for Irvine and his colleagues to use as a yardstick is the fully professional French Pro D2 and in truth the Championship still lags some way behind its French counterpart.
The Pro D2 consists of 16 teams and 30 regular season matches per club with the champions earning automatic promotion into the mighty Top14 regardless of ground criteria. Last year’s champions Oyonnax can barely squeeze 6,000 fans into their modest Stade Charles Mathon but have been a welcome and highly competitive addition to the top flight.
Places 2-5 then contest the play-offs to determine the second automatic promotion slot. The Top14 might outwardly appear the most elite league in the world financially but despite all the hundreds of millions being invested two of their teams are relegated from it every season.
Democracy and equality, that other great French passion, continues to hold sway and the investors have to accept that they are part of a pyramid and not a self-serving cosy club.
In recent years , Racing Metro 92 Grenoble and Oyonnax have all catapulted out of the Pro D2 to make an immediate impact in the Top14 while a decade ago it was unknown Montpellier who made the step up.
The Pro D2 has played a massive role in shaping the Top14. Meanwhile some of the great old French rugby names – Pau, Agen, Bourgoin, Colomiers, Dax and Beziers – play in the league and with the majority of Top14 sides top heavy with galacticos from across the globe this is the league where many of France’s most promising players learn their craft.
Certainly if you were looking to talent-spot France’s props for the 2019 World Cup over the next month or so I would start with the Pro D2 not the Top14.
Meanwhile, back in England, Irvine believes the Premiership could learn a few tricks from the Championship. “In many ways the success of the Championship is a testament to the resilience of the clubs more than anything else.
“The Championship leads the way in demonstrating what can be achieved on limited resources. When money is scarce you have to find ways of making do, with people doubling up and making do without the extra trappings. I like to think we have convinced a few people like Rob Andrew of the league’s worth but I don’t sense a huge amount of support elsewhere. We still find ourselves living off the scraps of the top table.
“The quality of rugby and the quality of player coming out of the Championship has never been higher – and you only have to look at the way Premiership clubs scout all our best players to see that.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple of seasons the Premiership clubs drop their A-teams altogether. I think only five Premiership clubs ran them this season. The Championship is increasingly where the next generation of Premiership players learn their trade. The Championship is now undoubtedly the best proving ground. This summer you will see another 25 or so players signed up by Premiership clubs, no question.
“And there you have an inequality straightaway. When Bath, for example, signed George Ford from they had to pay Leicester the statutory £30,000 fee for him as Leicester had developed him as a player.
“I fully understand that, it’s fair and makes sense, but why doesn’t it work the other way when a Premiership club signs a Championship player, like when Josh Bassett left us for Wasps? £30,000 would make a big difference to us.
“The dual registration system works well in my opinion but from what I hear there is a temptation for some Premiership clubs to try to dictate or influence when their players appear. That’s not the way. The template for me is the system we at Bedford have adopted with Saracens which dates back a few years to when Brendan Venter sent , Will Fraser, Jason Wray, James Short and George Kruis down to us.
“Brendan told them, ‘I don’t want to hear from any of you guys again until you’ve broken into the Bedford side and nailed down a starting spot because if you’re not good enough to start for Bedford you won’t be of much use to us’. Harsh but fair to all parties and certainly all the lads were terrific for us.
“There are other issues. The gulf between ourselves and is now much bigger than the Championship and the Premiership so we also need to see if there are ways we can help the clubs coming into the Championship.
“We need to lay down a few guidelines rather than rules although the need for an acceptable level of medical provision will be non-negotiable and mandatory.
“It all needs to go into the melting pot, these is a vital phase in the Championship’s development coming up.”

Leave a Comment