Rugby Union

[tigerburnie]

One heck of a birthday present for GDB there, that was a strong Sale side that Quins put to the sword

[grandadbob]

Yep and I didn't even see it because of the birthday celebrations!  However I'll be watching the recording shortly.

[tigerburnie]

Nice to see my lads getting over the white wash a bit, Tigers have some classy looking operators, early in this sides development with a new coaching team as well, but high hopes we can challenge domestically if not in europe.

[tigerburnie]

European rugby begins this weekend, be interesting to see, but at present I doubt if any English teams are likely to get very far, too inconsistent, ditto the Welsh and Scots, are the Irish up to it, I don't think so, I expect the French to clear up this year.

[rockershovel]

How does the national body ensure a supply of Test level players from the clubs? Send a fact-finding group to the Southern Hemisphere; they seem to know all about it. Clue; it starts by the National Body being willing to ACT like one. 

 

Sell Twickenham and lease it back? Don't give them ideas, for God's sake. You have to have faith that the Byzantine fsction-fighting there, combined with the sheer opacity of the structure prevents it. 

[tigerburnie]

Seemingly it is close to an all out war between the PRL and the RFU at the moment, talks for the new plan are it seems about as popular as a Rattlesnake in a lucky dip bag.

[BoD]

On 03/12/2023 at 17:04, tigerburnie said:

Nice to see my lads getting over the white wash a bit, Tigers have some classy looking operators, early in this sides development with a new coaching team as well, but high hopes we can challenge domestically if not in europe.

 

Disappointing result (for me), relatively disappointing performance, we usually manage to hang out for a bit longer than that, but your boys were good.  Boys? Dan Cole? 
 

Still, it was a great away day out at Welford Road. Home fans were very welcoming.

[tigerburnie]

Not been to Welford Road for ages,  me living in Scotland, but I understand it is still a good place to go to watch a game. I didn't like what Sir John Hall did with Rob Andrew, buying up Gosforth, changing their name, getting a load of players inn, winning then clearing off and leaving the club high and dry. Now I am full of admiration for them, our relegation battles at yours a few years back where tremendous, I really want the Falcons to thrive, quite like the Geordies, just don't tell any of them I said so.....................😎

[BoD]

Yes, Gosforth was a decent club back in simpler times, supplying a few players to the England team.  I had a quick chat with Roger Uttley on Carlisle station not that long ago.  
 

Because of today's circumstances the team is very much a young team under development. Last  Sunday was both figuratively and literally men against boys.  Some of the young players show great promise and I just hope that we can hang on to them as they develop. In the meantime it is all pretty painful.

[tigerburnie]

Tigers were the same last year, we have half a dozen around 20- 21 years old, experience will stand them in good stead for the future.

[rockershovel]

On 07/12/2023 at 16:38, tigerburnie said:

Seemingly it is close to an all out war between the PRL and the RFU at the moment, talks for the new plan are it seems about as popular as a Rattlesnake in a lucky dip bag.

Why would you expect anything else? The whole relationship is based upon the PRL trying to stick its fingers in the International till, which us where the REAL money is. 

 

Half the clubs in the PRL are effectively insolvent. 

 

They undermine player development by importing key positions. They undermine player fitness by over-playing them. 

 

The RFU would be better off with a structure They control; the club owners simply form a chronic, festering sore on the flank of the national squad. 

 

The new generation of "blazers" at Twickenham are coming to realise this. They are getting consistently defeated at RWC by better organised countries, at huge cost and they don't like it. 

 

Let's see what develops. 

[tigerburnie]

You don't read the news then? The RFU made £4million pounds, that is all, the English RFU are just behind the Welsh in the race to bankruptcy, awarding themselves huge pay rises, RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney received £16,000 pay rise to £684,000! 

You just don't get it do you, no rugby clubs, no rugby, no national team nothing, the clubs are the game, the RFU are an umbrella organisation that rejects it's responsibilities. When the game went pro, the RFU refused to get involved with running the game, now the game is reaping those rewards for inactivity and dereliction of duty.

I would like to know who the better organised countries are, name one, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina all on the brink of bankruptcy, falling out within themselves and sacking head coaches and CEO's. Even the Irish government are running short of money to payroll their game, clubs going under in Canada, the game stagnating in the USA. Japan are the only country growing with the French just surviving, with even some of their clubs struggling.

The game, like a lot of businesses in the entertainment business chasing dwindling finances, there will be higher profile failings than three pro rugby clubs in England, Banks, retail companies, even talk of Elon Musk and his twitter X thing struggling to survive.  Not only have players got to lower their salary expectations, so have the RFU

[rockershovel]

13 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

You don't read the news then? The RFU made £4million pounds, that is all, the English RFU are just behind the Welsh in the race to bankruptcy, awarding themselves huge pay rises, RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney received £16,000 pay rise to £684,000! 

You just don't get it do you, no rugby clubs, no rugby, no national team nothing, the clubs are the game, the RFU are an umbrella organisation that rejects it's responsibilities. When the game went pro, the RFU refused to get involved with running the game, now the game is reaping those rewards for inactivity and dereliction of duty.

I would like to know who the better organised countries are, name one, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Argentina all on the brink of bankruptcy, falling out within themselves and sacking head coaches and CEO's. Even the Irish government are running short of money to payroll their game, clubs going under in Canada, the game stagnating in the USA. Japan are the only country growing with the French just surviving, with even some of their clubs struggling.

The game, like a lot of businesses in the entertainment business chasing dwindling finances, there will be higher profile failings than three pro rugby clubs in England, Banks, retail companies, even talk of Elon Musk and his twitter X thing struggling to survive.  Not only have players got to lower their salary expectations, so have the RFU

I'm unclear quite what your point is. 

 

Certainly an organisation like the RFU is guilty of gross, systemic incompetence and dereliction of duty. No-one has ever really argued otherwise; they were useless and self-serving in amateur days and still are. 

 

My point is that the RFU don't need the clubs. They could run a centrally-contracted Regions system above a Championship and dispense with the PRL entirely; how many players would stay with the PRL if it meant missing Test paydays? 

 

There's a hard rain a-gonna fall. The PRL isn't solvent now and won't recover. 

[tigerburnie]

5 hours ago, rockershovel said:

I'm unclear quite what your point is. 

 

 

My point is that the RFU don't need the clubs. They could run a centrally-contracted Regions system above a Championship and dispense with the PRL entirely; how many players would stay with the PRL if it meant missing Test paydays? 

 

Who will follow it, the fans are already saying they won't follow a franchise and as they cannot afford to pay the players it will never happen. England has a history of club rugby going back over a hundred or more years, Ireland never had that. Franchises don't work in Wales or Scotland. France are running the game as a team based sport, they have a better fan base because the French public follow it more than football, so they get more tv company money.

[rockershovel]

18 hours ago, tigerburnie said:

Who will follow it, the fans are already saying they won't follow a franchise and as they cannot afford to pay the players it will never happen. England has a history of club rugby going back over a hundred or more years, Ireland never had that. Franchises don't work in Wales or Scotland. France are running the game as a team based sport, they have a better fan base because the French public follow it more than football, so they get more tv company money.

You seem to be arguing in circles, against yourself. The clubs are not viable. They probably never will be. 

 

The PRL is a racket. It was set up for the purpose of a forced grab of International revenues, and that's still its main purpose. 

 

Let the RFU offer a centrally contracted Regional structure, with about 40 players on retainer and the rest paid per game. Let them play an 8 game season with no matches conflicting with 6N etc.

 

Players from outside the Regions to play for whatever their clubs can afford. No imported players to play in Regional structure, unless centrally contracted. 

 

Let the PRL do anything it can afford to do, with the proviso that commitments under RFU Central Contracts have priority.

 

This clears the deck for a centrally contracted players pool of eligible players about half the size of the PRL. 

 

The plain fact is that the RFU and the handful of senior clubs ownerships have been at each others throats for thirty years now. They have achieved nothing. Its time for one or the other to leave the stage. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by rockershovel

[tigerburnie]

2 hours ago, rockershovel said:

You seem to be arguing in circles, against yourself. The clubs are not viable. They probably never will be. 

 

The PRL is a racket. It was set up for the purpose of a forced grab of International revenues, and that's still its main purpose. 

 

Let the RFU offer a centrally contracted Regional structure, with about 40 players on retainer and the rest paid per game. Let them play an 8 game season with no matches conflicting with 6N etc.

 

Players from outside the Regions to play for whatever their clubs can afford. No imported players to play in Regional structure, unless centrally contracted. 

 

Let the PRL do anything it can afford to do, with the proviso that commitments under RFU Central Contracts have priority.

 

This clears the deck for a centrally contracted players pool of eligible players about half the size of the PRL. 

 

The plain fact is that the RFU and the handful of senior clubs ownerships have been at each others throats for thirty years now. They have achieved nothing. Its time for one or the other to leave the stage. 

You sure do live in a strange world.

Some kind of central contract is imminent, rumours of 25 players on £125k(I presume that's a year, but they haven't said) Maro Itoje has been offered the first one to stop him going to France

[rockershovel]

TBH, I'd be quite relaxed about the whole England squad going to France and just travelling back on match days with an hour in the bar at King's X to sort out the game plan between them. 

 

The less they see of the coaching team, the happier we will all be. They were clearly not going to the Final in France and Borthwick hasn't made any material changes. 

[whart57]

On 11/12/2023 at 14:47, tigerburnie said:

Who will follow it, the fans are already saying they won't follow a franchise and as they cannot afford to pay the players it will never happen. England has a history of club rugby going back over a hundred or more years, Ireland never had that. Franchises don't work in Wales or Scotland. France are running the game as a team based sport, they have a better fan base because the French public follow it more than football, so they get more tv company money.

 

Surely the reason franchises work in Ireland is because the four provinces were already well established in the Gaelic sports of football and hurling. A hierarchy of club > county > province was already well understood. The fact that Leinster and Munster then went on to be forces in the European club game didn't do any harm either.

 

The problem in Wales was that the new structure was effectively club mergers, and that requires a level of sensitivity and intelligence well beyond what the Welsh RFU possesses.

 

There is another historical lesson from the professionalising of Dutch soccer. Before 1954 Dutch football was amateur and club based. There were six top divisions, regionally based, and the title of champion was decided through a play-off competition involving the six regional champions. Germany, pre Bundesliga, had a similar structure. When professionalism was allowed all but a few of the top clubs adopted it, but it was still ten years before one club, Ajax Amsterdam, offered players fully professional contracts. To a young gentleman named Johan Cruyff incidentally. Other clubs followed but most couldn't afford to. Some chose to drop back into the amateur system, others decided to remain semi-pro accepting they would rarely grace the eredivisie, but a number sought to solve the problem by merging with a neighbour. The results were very mixed. An undoubted success is AZ Alkmaar, but that was really Alkmaar FC taking over a much smaller rival, Zaanstreek. FC Utrecht and FC Groningen have also turned into successful merged entities but in these cases it was only the professional first teams that merged, the community clubs that supported them did not merge but returned to the amateur ranks. Alkmaar, Utrecht and Groningen all benefited from being the only professional side of their home cities. Something that the Amsterdam merger did not have.

 

In Amsterdam the problem for the cities other three professional clubs was that Ajax was dominant. Not only in winning the eredivisie title many times but in winning the European Cup three times in succession as well. Ajax was Amsterdam, even to the extent that their home games were advertised in the drivers' window on the trams.

 

 

Of the other three, DWS was an eredivisie side, they had even become champions in the early sixties, but the other two, Blauw-Wit and Volewijckers, were second tier. DWS proposed merger, but the memberships of the other two were against losing their identity as the merged side would play in south Amsterdam at the Olympic stadium as DWS were doing. Not so much a problem for Blauw-Wit who were also based in south Amsterdam but for the Volewijckers from north Amsterdam it was. So the two smaller sides hived off their professional operations to the merged entity and dropped back into the amateur ranks. The fusion failed. FC Amsterdam folded in the late seventies after a few years playing to a nearly empty Olympic stadium, but none of the clubs did well in the amateur game either. The community aspect had been lost.

[tigerburnie]

Some unexpected results in the Euro cups, nice win for the Tigers and well done to the Georgian Black Lions getting their first win.

[The Fatadder]

On 12/12/2023 at 17:06, rockershovel said:

TBH, I'd be quite relaxed about the whole England squad going to France and just travelling back on match days with an hour in the bar at King's X to sort out the game plan between them

I’ve seen interviews with some of the Welsh players who were based in France that the travel (plus things like having to travel back to the south of France play on the test weekends) was impacting their performances for Wales.

There is a lot of good reasoning behind the limitations on playing outside the premiership, as soon as you make exceptions for one more will follow.

 

 

back to last weekends games, brilliant game in Cardiff.  Lots of trys, back and forth lead, although a few too many points missed with the boot.  Pleased to see Bath performing again.   

[rockershovel]

8 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

I’ve seen interviews with some of the Welsh players who were based in France that the travel (plus things like having to travel back to the south of France play on the test weekends) was impacting their performances for Wales.

There is a lot of good reasoning behind the limitations on playing outside the premiership, as soon as you make exceptions for one more will follow.

 

 

 

I was mostly being facetious about the beneficial, or otherwise effects of the England coaching squad.... but I take your point. 

 

The REAL magic of the SH squads is the talismanic value of the black, or green Jersey. I shouldn't think NZ in particular could care less about competition for players. 

[whart57]

The Championship clubs have told Bill Sweeney where to stuff his franchise Premiership 2 plan

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/other/bill-sweeney-s-plans-for-second-tier-are-flawed/ar-AA1lVMZz

[tigerburnie]

Good for them, about time the gravy train was brought to a halt and accountability is engaged

[whart57]

Interesting piece in today's Guardian which I draw to the attention of those who do not normally go there:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/jan/02/rugby-union-nostalgia-defences-space-tackles

 

Basically he argues rugby is much better now than in the amateur days. Some may disagree but it's worth reading his points.

[tigerburnie]

I don't think you can compare amateur rugby against the pro game of today, the laws have been changed, refs interpretation of the laws have changed the speed and strength of the players in the modern game is so different to what it was. I miss the old game for genuine contests like the scrum, when the ball went in the middle and not into the second row, there was a genuine contest, that has gone. Lifting in the lineouts making competing for the ball almost impossible as you cannot touch the opposition player, lifting should be banned, it's dangerous for all concerned and again a real contest would be returned. Backs no longer rely on skill and guile like it used to be, all rugby players now spend hours in the gym and taking special diets to  increase their size and strength. How ever as a spectacle, the pro game is entertaining to watch, not too sure the crowds would like a nine man game with no tries and a slugfest as often happened when I played.