Ealing can’t be blamed if they look to the URC

EALING Trailfinders could be forgiven for adopting the old Millwall FC chant, “No one likes us, we don’t care”.

The west London club have been forsaken by the RFU, its governing body, by being denied multiple promotions from the Championship to the Premiership, always on the basis that they do not meet the ground criteria to be promoted.

Last season this was because, even though their Vallis Way ground meets the 5,000 capacity required in the first year of promotion, they had not acquired the planning permission required four years in advance for it to have a 10,000 capacity.

It is shameless ring-fencing, but in the absence of a restraint-of-trade legal challenge by the club, bang went another Ealing play-off against beleaguered Newcastle, who finished bottom of the Premiership for the second season in succession, having lost 16 and won two.

It was the same in 2023-24, when, having lost all 18 matches, the Geordies were granted another reprieve by the RFU/Premiership. It was a similar story in 2021-22 when Bath avoided a relegation play-off due to the RFU-imposed moratorium on promotion-relegation post-Covid.

This season the word is that Ealing have had enough, and that with Newcastle languishing at the foot of the Premiership table again despite their Red Bull takeover, having lost five out of five, they will refuse to take no for an answer, and demand a play-off.

Ealing have thrown the gauntlet down as runaway leaders of the Champ, not just winning six from six, but demonstrating that they have outgrown the second-tier league by posting a number of cricket scores. Their 71-0 trouncing of Ampthill last weekend told the story, but what means they have at their disposal to force the RFU/ Prem to confirm a play-off is not yet clear.

However, there are indications that Trailfinders do not intend to wait around for the shame of it to force the incumbent RFU administration to resign en masse. Reports in Wales suggest that the URC has held talks with Ealing, exploring the potential for the English second-tier champions to join the Celtic–Italian– South African annual competition in the event that one of the four Welsh regional teams is mothballed.

The rationale is that the URC wants to keep an even number of teams, and that the Welsh Rugby Union is supporting Ealing’s candidacy because it wants to avoid a fine for disrupting the tournament.

If Ealing create a precedent by splitting from the RFU to join another jurisdiction no-one can blame them – and any discord that follows rests at the gates of a national union which ignored the necessity for a meritocratic league structure in favour of a ring-fence.