'We were already going to be facing Saracens with our hands tied behind our backs - now they have tied our legs as well'
Yorkshire Carnegie boss Phil Davies believes the Rugby Football Union’s controversial decision to drastically slash funding for the second-tier Championship could damage the heart and soul of the game in England.
The fears of the 2019 Namibian World Cup coach are echoed by former Wales out-half Paul Turner, the head coach at Ampthill who were promoted to the Championship this season. He claims the loss of funds was “a bolt out of the blue that will have a devastating impact on every area of our club”.
Ampthill will face relegated Saracens next season, whose fall from grace will be softened by a parachute payment from Premiership Rugby worth millions. That makes the loss of Championship funding even harder for Turner to bear. “We were already going to be facing Saracens with our hands tied behind our backs – now they have tied our legs as well,” he said.
The RFU’s decision has been branded by one club chairman as “deplorable”. The dozen Championship clubs had been able to split £8million in funding from the RFU this season, but they will now only have £4.3m to share out next season. Premiership Rugby (PRL) have also cut their financial support from £1.7m to £850,000 and will stop any cash injection for the 2021/22 season.
Championship clubs are now urgently examining what measures will be needed due to the drop in funds, but hundreds of job losses on and off the pitch are a likely result.
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Dai Young relieved of first-team duties at Wasps
Davies’ recent experiences with Namibia means he knows all about the battle for cash to help develop pay players. He said: “I assume that at the moment the Championship is viewed as the second-tier of professional rugby in England but I don’t know if that is going to be the case moving forward.
“Will people now see it is as the top end of the community game? What Ampthill have done is amazing and is similar to the move up the leagues we did years ago at Leeds.
“Doncaster have created fantastic facilities while Nottingham is a club of great history and it’s important to recognise this because it is the heart and soul of the game. I’m here in Yorkshire, England’s biggest rugby playing county, and progress is being made.
Huge blow for second-tier rugby in England
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“It is key to have competitive league structures so that players can gain experience in that kind of arena and while A team rugby can be as near in style as anything in the Premiership, it doesn’t match up to a really competitive league structure.
“In Wales, the Premiership is a great place to identify the next generation of players, referees and coaches and engage supporters. You have to create a pathway for the next Owen Farrell and George Ford and decide if you want the community game to thrive or the elite game. There are many things to take into account – not just money and high performance.”
Ampthill have close links with Saracens, Leicester and Northampton with players being loaned to the Championship club to gain valuable experience. England internationals Ben Earl and Nick Isiekwe have worn the Ampthill colours in recent seasons and the club will have five Premiership loan players in their squad to face London Scottish this weekend.
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“This month is when a lot of guys from the Premiership are looking for matches,” added Turner. “We are giving them the rugby time they cannot get at their clubs. The timing of all of this is poor. Why couldn’t they have given us twelve months’ notice? Are we bottom of the professional leagues or top of the community leagues?”
There are real concerns that the A team league for the Premiership clubs will now become the focal point for RFU support rather than the Championship which will also see its sponsorship deal with Greene King finish at the end of the season.
According to former Harlequins CEO Mark Evans, prioritising the A league is the wrong emphasis. He tweeted: “Wasteful financially and ineffective in development terms. Reserve grade football simply does not work and leads to bloated squads, huge number of cancellations and lack of opportunities for individual players.”
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Comments on RugbyPass
Couple of things BS missed: wind was behind the Baby Blacks in the first half. Baby Boks got points from a scrum penalty in the final quarter against this ‘dominant pack’, and left three points on the park after a missed penalty.
8 Go to commentsSensible thoughts on this, Brett. Also worth considering we’ve sold 60k tickets for a game between the Rebels and the Lions next year. Got to be roughly $10m in ticket and game day revenue there.
5 Go to commentsUnsuccessful bitter ex Ulster player taking a pop shot at a side that isn't including his consistently poor mates up north
4 Go to commentsHis decision to play in France isn’t a petulant decision as this article suggests. I reckon that France is the perfect place to demonstrate that he can mix it in those battles Rassie references. It’s a good decision to try get into the squad. My personal opinion is that he wins more battles than he loses. I don’t have Rassie’s stats machine behind me, but Daymian’s is so strong moving through traffic and in the rip.
3 Go to commentsWow! Argie forward dominance is something I have not read in years….
1 Go to commentsIs the ‘snub’ really why he is leaving? He hasn’t said that has he? You don’t have to stay in SA to play for the Boks, so it’s not that he’s giving up on trying to get into the squad as the case would be in, say, England or New Zealand. Rassie made it clear that the early camps won’t feature all the players to play for the Boks this year so I can’t imagine Dayimani was too offended by being overlooked this time. It just seems like a sensationalist angle to take for a story without really knowing the player’s intentions.
3 Go to commentsWell, it is easily one of the best Irish sides, it’s just that their historical standard is very low.
4 Go to commentsThe Irish side is good. They have lost 2 games in the last 23 tests. In the last 12 months they have have a 60% win rate against the top 5 sides in the world. Over the same period south africa have a 67% win rate against the top 5 teams, and New Zealand are at 40%.
4 Go to commentsOnly 1247 days until RWC 2027 starts Bin Smuth🤣Can’t wait to see how unhinged you’re still gonna get between now & then
200 Go to commentsany chance either team will improve on their u20 world cup performances this time around? I assume both sides will be deeply disappointed with how things went.
6 Go to commentsAnother poor articles by a poor journo, nothing new from Ben, at least you are consistently bad lol, geez I will try and watch the match later, clearly Benny was only looking to one end of the pitch, hard to tell whom the Baby Blacks were playing if it wasn’t in the header 😄😄
8 Go to commentsNz should have won. I didn't watch the game, but the ref was at fault and the bounce of the ball and the Bokke used the Bomb squad and the Bokke slow the game down and the Bokke scrum. They should remove the scrum. The Bokke are to strong. Not fair. Nz should have won
8 Go to commentsProbably the worst article on a rugby match I have ever read
200 Go to commentsWho hurt this man.. LoL 😭
200 Go to commentsIt unfortunate for the Jaguares that they became formidable just as super rugby as we knew came to an end. However, the idea of bringing them back is nonsensical. While I enjoyed the Jaguares and the South African flavour of the comp, a selling point of this incarnation of super rugby is that all games are on a decent time for an Aussie audience.
5 Go to commentslol that’s your opinion Ben, All Blacks benefited from a forward pass try, SA played 77 min without a recognised hooker, missed a no try conversion and a penalty could have would have but didn’t
200 Go to commentsBrett, from my distant perspective, I hope you get to keep the Rebels. Any ideas of teams from Japan or Argentina are just crazy. Won’t happen. If you look at logistics, it is much easier to get to LA from Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney than to Buenos Aires. All with direct non-stop daily flights. You may even get some “gringos” to watch the games, with some younger players compared to Giteau and Nonu who still “play” in the area. I think it is virtually impossible to get a competitive Argie team for SR. All Pumas are in Europe, almost all second tier players are also in Europe. Fringe players are in South American pro rugby tournament (and many still in the MLR!) but these players who might be most interested in joining a new Jaguares do not have the skills to compete. As I have been saying since the Jaguares joined, they should have had TWO teams to make logistics for visiting teams better and Argie player development improved as well. Jaguares/Pumas was not ideal. But this is where Pichot and his cronies did not think long enough. Further the country with he new president “No hay Plata” Milei is in a very difficult situation. Galperin, the richest man in Argentina owns the Miami franchise of MLR. I don’t think you can get him to invest in Argentina. Actually, he played rugby himself. He was a fly half. He is worth around $6 billion!
5 Go to commentsWell done Baby Boks we will take the Draw. No 9 senseless long passes in those conditions. let’s move on and hope for some good weather
8 Go to commentsHow did it end a draw. South Africa didn’t score any points as far as I can see
8 Go to commentsNo doubt this will be a fantastic occasion and I plan to be there, but I think the bean counters have won out over the rugby brains. In my opinion, it is foolhardy to give the Black Ferns the experience of playing in front of 60,000+ at Twickenham a year before they might be playing there in a World Cup Final. Better to play France at Twickenham and Black Ferns at Kingsholm. The difference in takings would be miniscule.
1 Go to comments