It has also been agreed that from Monday, Covid testing will go back to once a week in the Premiership and Championship. The Professional Game Board PGB , which agreed to reduce it from twice weekly testing, said it followed a decrease in coronavirus cases in England and a reduction in the number of positive tests in the professional game.
Find out how as he fields questions from the UK's hardest-hitting young journalists Take a sneak peek as a new generation of footballers try to make it to the very top. Slow starts. Record points conceded. A sky-high penalty count. How England's Six Nations campaign fell short on multiple fronts.
Ex-England scrum-half Matt Dawson says he still has flashbacks to times his Grand Slam hopes were ended and the same will be true for Wales players. Watch highlights from a dramatic match as France beat Wales in the dying seconds to end the visitors' Grand Slam hopes and keep alive their chances of winning the Six Nations title.
England coach Eddie Jones says he needs "to reset the team" after their Six Nations title defence ended in defeat by Ireland and a fifth-place finish. Wales wake up to Grand Slam devastation with hopes Scotland can repay a year debt to at least give Wayne Pivac's side the Six Nations title.
The object of the two tier is to see if investors would be sufficiently emboldened to plough enough money into the current Championship clubs. Interesting idea to pull up the drawbridge slightly lower down.
However, the professional game needs to become self-sustaining, rather than relying on wealthy backers to fund it. There are too many professional teams and not enough fans at the moment.
Not all National League 1 teams are dead horses, Coventry regularly draw in excess of 1, at home games, more than some Championship sides and with bigger sides come bigger attendances. Oh dear not this old rubbish again. The Championship then becomes even more of a non-competition, which is unlikely to draw sufficient interest from fans to make it financially viable.
Funding for 24 professional teams is not self-sufficient for the game of rugby union in England right now so it makes no sense to try and stretch the already limited resources. They finished 4th in the league but due to the ill thought out playoff process got promoted RFU than reject them for promotion They successfully win an appeal late leaving them 3 weeks to prepare for the top flight They move grounds to Oxford abandoning their fan base and get next to no gate money for the season.
They lay off the squad that got them promoted to bring in a load of expensive over ratted mercs. Bottom two from each division get relegated to National League One with the top two being promoted, if one team refuses promotion then bottom two teams playoff and depending who is promoted there would be a slight shuffle of the divisions. The clubs in power will ensure they stay in power. Bloat the numbers in the Prem or relegate someone.
Bloating is unsustainable think Super Rugby. But then who gets relegated? The bottom team that year? But what if that team just had an anomalously poor season, and another team had been bottom the previous two years? When is that team offered the chance to come back in to the Prem? The next year? Without a clear structure and fair rules to who is allowed entry to an exclusive club, the whole system falls apart.
However, I know we need to sort out the Championship as it clearly is not working in the current format. The key, as people have said, is that there are not the number of supporters to make Champ clubs financially viable. For me, it requires significant investment from the RFU to help clubs upgrade facilities and invest in promoting the game to local audiences. Something I think would help attract more spectators to the Championship is if the Prem club partnered with Champ teams to get their young stars significant exposure and game time.
This used to happen a lot more than it does these days — Tom Young learning his trade at hooker at Nottingham is a recent example — but will benefit both the young players and could raise the standard of some of the rugby at the Champ clubs — it would also reduce the financial burden on them if they have 4 or 5 great talents mostly funded by a Prem club. The RFU needs to invest significant time and resource in overhauling the Championship to make a viable 2nd tier competition — rather than just giving up and closing up shop by ring-fencing the Prem.
Premiership Academy players are loaned out to clubs from Championship down to National 2, and some selected clubs at Level 5 too. In most cases, it works for the boys of course, but it does not work to the benefit or sustainability of the clubs, as it encourages short-termism amongst their playing resource, and erodes sense of loyalty amongst the players.
I do think that thi sis a whole different subject. Aware my point is built on scratchy knowledge of this area. The only reason I mention it was as one way to help boost the Championship teams — as I think making the Championship more successful financially, and therefore potentially able to compete at Prem level, is the way to go, and that feeds into the ring fencing debate.
Close Menu Home. England Rugby. Club Rugby. Rugby Predictions. Where do you stand on the promotion and relegation issue in English Rugby? God knows how that impacts the game frequency debate though. Things change. VJ, One might argue that there is no long-term growth of the development of the game in France, only short-term success for the clubs.
Seeing London Irish promoted every other year as an example will not prevent this. Prem clubs all loan Academy players to Championship sides to give them game time. Bonus point system introduced. Zurich Championship introduced with end of season quarter-finals, semi-finals and final at Twickenham. Bath beaten by Leicester in the final. Zurich Championship end of season quarter-finals, semi-finals with Final at Twickenham.
Gloucester beat Bristol Shoguns in Championship final. Relegation and Promotion: Leeds escape relegation after Rotherham refused promotion due to facilities failing to meet Premiership criteria. Champions: Leicester Tigers. New format for deciding the Zurich Champions introduced. Gallagher Premiership Rugby.
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Latest Transfer News. Premiership Rugby TV. Match Highlights. Team Highlights. Premiership Rugby Videos. Box Sets. Premiership Rugby Cup. Premiership Rugby Shield. In a bid to prevent clashes between Premiership and international fixtures -- particularly during the Six Nations -- the clubs broached staging the club season between September and the end of June. That idea was shot down by players amid concerns over welfare arising from the prospect of an month season for those involved with their national teams in July.
It is now likely that the Premiership season will start later from , in October. All of which means there is now a real chance that promotion to and relegation from the top flight will be scrapped as the two parties look to maximise the potential of the Premiership. In , when the first professional game agreement was signed with the RFU, Premiership clubs turned down the offer of scrapping relegation, instead opting to give parachute payments to those teams who drop down into the Championship.
Under this system teams who competed in the top division were given a certain amount of shares in Premiership Rugby, the body that runs the league. At present 13 clubs -- including Championship-topping Bristol -- have a stake in Premiership Rugby, making this anything but a straightforward decision. The clubs are reticent to expand the league to 14 clubs given the problems it already faces in a crowded global calendar, so there would likely be a playoff between the team that finishes bottom of the Premiership and the one that tops the Championship.
Given the heads of agreement between the Championship clubs and RFU ends in , it is likely that the playoff would take place at the end of the season. One theory goes that without the threat of relegation playing budgets would be focused, young players trusted and a more exciting brand of rugby would take hold in the Premiership. The knock-on effect of that would be that English clubs could compete on a more level playing field with their rivals in Ireland, for example, in European competition.
England would also benefit if that ideal-world scenario played out.
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