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The 'common sense' reasons why Rob Baxter wants 10-team Premiership
By Liam Heagney
Exeter boss Rob Baxter has explained at length why he believes a ten-team Gallagher Premiership could be the best solution for the top flight in England in the long run. The director of rugby was criticised recently for his clinical comments about the now automatically relegated Worcester and his latest overview on the sport will likely draw the ire of some upset Wasps fans who found out on Wednesday that their club will also be entering administration.
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Wasps have also postponed this Saturday’s match away to Exeter and their financial mess will probably ultimately result in them being automatically relegated from the top flight. Baxter knows he isn’t immune to criticism as he referenced how his comments get berated by other Premiership clubs. However, he believes that for the financial security of the sport and getting the best spectacle on the pitch that a cutback to just ten clubs would be the best future model for the tournament.
It was Wednesday morning at 9:30 when Baxter hosted his weekly media briefing. At the time, this weekend’s match at Sandy Park versus Wasps – a clash of the two clubs that contested the October 2020 Premiership final – was a fixture he felt would go ahead and his squad were preparing as if they did have a match.
Four hours later, though, that round six game had fallen by the wayside as Wasps addressed players and staff at their training ground in Henley-in-Arden to explain they would go into administration in the next few days due to a lack of cash flow and would not be fulfilling their Sandy Park appointment.
That development will be grist to the mill of Baxter and his desire to see a more streamlined Premiership. He explained he never liked the idea of the number of clubs going above twelve (it went to 13 for the 2021/22 season after Saracens were promoted and would have been 14 this season had Ealing met the top flight’s stadia criteria).
Baxter added that he wasn’t surprised that Premiership clubs such as Worcester and Wasps have encountered severe financial problems as their struggle is reflective of other industries and businesses across England coming out of the pandemic. “If we had this conversation five years ago I would have said, ‘Yeah, very strange’.
“But once you go through that covid period and you see it happening everywhere in the country, you then go, ‘This is the stuff that happens’. We can’t step away from that as a rugby business can we? We can’t run away and go, ‘Everything is exactly the same as it was before’. Yes, we do some great stuff on the field but the reality is we are all involved in day-to-day businesses.
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“That is the bit where you say to me, ‘How can I envisage this?’ I 100 per cent can… and the one thing this has highlighted more than anything else is the importance of whatever structure gets put in place at whatever time in the next two, five years, ten years, we have got to make sure we get it spot on because we don’t want these scenarios of changing league numbers happening.
“Everyone knows my thoughts, I thought it was madness to go to 13. Going to 13 in a weird kind of way almost signed a warrant for someone to not be able to stay in there because it doesn’t make any common sense and it wrecks the calendar anyway. We made a decision a while ago that was not going to help this from happening. To see it changing back again is not a shock to me, no.”
With Worcester automatically relegated and Wasps set to go the same way, next season’s Premiership is set to be an eleven-team affair as the 2022/23 Championship champions will not be promoted. Would having eleven top-flight teams satisfy Baxter? “Of course, it doesn’t for exactly the same reason.
“That is the issue and that is why at some stage it is going to be the next big decisions that get made that are going to be the important ones for Premiership Rugby. At the moment it is really difficult because I can get asked a question by you now and I can give answers that seem very clinical against Worcester, against Wasps etc. Every time I have a conversation about where Premiership Rugby is heading I get berated for not supporting an individual club.
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“They are two entirely different things. I don’t want any club to be struggling financially, of course I don’t, but that is a completely different argument to what is the correct structure for the Premiership, international rugby and the leagues below.
“They are two entirely different situations and if you are asking me what is the next thing that has to happen, we have got to get a structure in place that aligns rugby union in this country. Then at least we can start with a situation that can be progressive rather than regressive, which is where we are at the moment.”
At the moment the situation is that two clubs are officially financially broken and there is speculation that some more could be in trouble. Where does Baxter think the Premiership will end up in terms of its number of participants so that the best tournament can be staged?
“I would have always said twelve if I am honest with you because that was the structure Exeter grew into and got used to playing in, Now – and please don’t write this so I get berated by a number of other clubs – I would say ten but for more the reasons the pressure is coming on in all kinds of ways now.
“You have got clashes with Premiership Rugby and international rugby and I genuinely feel Premiership supporters are wanting to see more competitive games with more of their high-profile players. That is a genuine wish and a genuine frustration. When I do members’ forums here it will be one of the questions raised.
“I’m not saying that everybody is thinking it but some people are thinking it is a big frustration, there are a lot of games without international players. It [ten clubs] solves that problem to a degree and also everyone is aware there is a massive focus at the moment on the number of games people play.
”In total, you start to add it all up and for a calendar that feels right over an extended five, six, seven, eight years in a player’s professional career, when you go a league of around ten home and away with their international commitments and a cup competition for the guys not involved in internationals, it starts to sound very common sense.
“That is me talking. Obviously, alongside that you have got the commercial pressure of fewer home games and hopefully what you do is attract bigger crowds to a better spectacle and better TV coverage where they watch the international players playing every single week. Those are the big questions I’m not qualified to answer but if you decide to put it into a nutshell, a lot of those things seem very common sense to me.”
I 1,000% agree with Baxter, and I'm glad someone with a real voice is finally saying it out loud, not just me, random internet commenter.
We're down to 11, we know one more club is teetering and the rumor mill seems to have settled on the idea that it's London Irish. Thirteen was too many, 14 is absurd, and as we're seeing, perhaps 12 is too many.
I think the advantages of a 10 team league are crystal clear. Aside from all the financials, the reality is that we have too many matches. Ten provides us a nice tidy 18 fixtures, same as URC, we never need to go up against Autumn Internationals or Six Nations, and even players missing matches for international training/recovery will be a minimum if at all.
Second, pushing say, London Irish and phoenix versions of Wasps & Worcester down a level to start off, into say, a fully professional 8 club Championship, makes it a real battle for promotion every season, brings excitement to that league as well.
If we somehow find a way to remain at 12, then we should split the league into 2 groups based on final positions from the previous season (odds & evens) and have a 16 match schedule. But this 26-24-22 Stuff is just too many matches, and we seem to have too many clubs.