Why the RFU should lose the LV=Cup and reformat the Premiership
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Such were the words of Charles Darwin. Words I believe strongly in, and which prompt me to suggest that English rugby needs to change its top level Club organization to continue to provide an entertaining club competition, clubs who can compete on a European stage and clubs who can provide players to a National team which is a serious contender for Major Honours.
You may be one of those starting to read this whose initial thought is “Why change anything?” True, we’ve had a fascinating season this year, with top spot and home semi final venues still up for grabs, the relegation issue and, at least mathematically, 1 Heineken Cup Place still undecided as we enter the 22nd and Final Week”. I understand your argument, but to stand still is to die. Some of you may feel this is pretty “out there” but I believe it is something that needs discussing.
Lose the LV= Cup
In the Amateur days, the Pilkington Cup was the pinnacle of club rugby, but the League has overtaken the Cup in prominence and all the LV Cup serves to do is to give “senior” exposure to squad players. Losing the LV Cup would serve two purposes therefore. Firstly, squads could be reduced in size allowing an easier adherence to the salary cap and secondly it would allow clubs to ease the burden on senior players in terms of games played allowing the whole squad to be fresher for the bigger tournaments of League and European Cups. This is one change I would make as soon as any existing sponsorship agreements end. I suspect more people will agree with this change than the other suggested change I am about to propose for discussion.
Premiership Reform
The 12 team Premiership, with 1 relegation and 1 promotion place (if the team wishing to climb the ladder has a suitable ground) is antiquated already and needs freshening up in my opinion. The Premiership as it stands is very nearly a closed shop in everything but name, but confusion as we enter the final week of the season as to whether the team relegated will actually go down is wrong.
I propose a ringfenced system something like that which exists in Rugby League’s Super League, where a licence is given to a number of teams for a specific period of time (say 4 years). This effectively closes the shop for that period and allows teams who get into the Premiership time to build a team and club which is worthy of the competition. To do this though, I would stretch the number of teams to 16, without increasing the number of games played. How, I hear you ask? Well here’s how:
Let’s take the 12 Premiership teams currently there, along with the 4 biggest Championship clubs (based on attendance for the moment), Bristol, Bedford, Leeds, Cornish Pirates. I would split these geographically into 2 Pools of 8, and each side would play their other Pool members Home and Away, and each of the teams in the other Pool once (4 Home, 4 Away), keeping the total of 22 League games.
Pool A: Bath, Bristol, Cornish Pirates, Exeter, Gloucester, London Irish, Wasps, Worcester
Pool B: Bedford, Harlequins, Leeds, Leicester, Newcastle, Northampton, Sale, Saracens
As proved by the Heineken Cup, World Cup and Premiership Play-offs, knock-out rugby provides great drama and as such at the end of the League section, the top 4 from each Pool would compete in Cross-pool Quarter Finals (1st vs 4th, 2nd vs 3rd) and then Semi Finals and Finals to determine the finishing order of the different teams. We could also have 5th in each Pool playing off against each other for 9th place (2 legs), 6th in each Pool for 11th, etc. to allow for a full 1 to 16 ranking of the teams, which can be added up over the first three years of the licence period to show which clubs should be the ones considered for replacement by any candidates wishing to enter the competition (though I would suggest off-field performance, to include any breaching of salary cap rules for example, should also be a category for this decision).
To summarise:
• 16 Teams (in 2 Pools of 8)
• Local rivalries are maintained with Home and Away fixtures.
• 11 Home fixtures are guaranteed.
• Fixtures have meaning to the very end of the season.
• Knock-out QFs, SFs and Final to decide Champions
• Teams in the Top half of the Pools would play 25 games, bottom half would play 24. Less than the current League plus LV Cup totals.
• Promoted sides have an opportunity to build a side to compete at this level rather than immediately having to struggle for survival.
• The disappearance of the threat of immediate relegation also allows sides to play younger players earlier.
The combination of these two changes means a smaller squad size and more top level opportunities for players, so a situation where Flood and Ford, Hodgson and Farrell, Lamb and Myler are at the same clubs and either rotated, played out of position or warm the bench, is less likely to occur.
As I said at the very beginning, this is meant as a discussion piece. Some may agree, some may violently disagree, but I firmly believe that to sit back and enjoy the status quo is a dangerous seat to take. I started with a quote, I will end with one:
“You can’t expect to meet the challenges of today with yesterday’s tools and expect to be in business tomorrow.”
by Mark Bonsall
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Take us on at SuperBru
Definetly go with the first idea. Scrap the Anglo-welsh cup but have just an english cup.
Take the 12 premiership teams and then the top four from the championship qualify for the english cup.
However this would mean final standings from the previous season with regards to the following seasons qualification.
1-11 in the premiership.
The relegated team and the Promoted team.
Then the other three semi-finalists.
Overall the top 16 teams in the country split into four pools of four.
The top two in each pool qualify for quarter finals and then semis and then the final to be played at Twickenham.
So if we go with last seasons placings:
1-11 from the premiership
Leeds and Worcester
Bedford Blues, Cornish Pirates, London Welsh
Not really what I am suggesting. I think the Cup should go completely, not be remodelled. If you want to keep it, then keep it but for teams who are not involved in the suggested “licenced” Premiership.
I was saying that if you had to pick one of the two ideas I would just scrap it.
The remodelling was supposed to be a seperate suggestion. Sorry I should have made that clear.
I think the cup is a waste as well however, Squad size and depth is key to success in domestic and european competition so I do not think the LV-cup is the reason for clubs fighting the salary cap. The majority of the players that get game time in the LV are usually academy or development players on £20k or less anually.
I think 16 teams is too large for a domestic league and fans would not be happy with that pool system. It means that for example, a team which does not have the financial clout or players available to them to compete week in week out up north, would have to, at some point in the four years, travel down south to say play Saracens away. With no return fixture most clubs would see that as totally unfair that they lose their home advantage against certain teams.
Now, their are also more pro clubs in the south of the country than the north. That means that surely Leicester and Northampton would be in the northern pool. The other two top teams in the premiership, Quins and Sarries would be in the southern pool. No club is ever going to agree to a system where they could lose two of their biggest home fixtures which sell tickets and promote the club.
I do like the ring fencing and license idea, I think relegation is killing the English game and stifling our talent development. I would propose 14 teams with licenses for 4 years, these licenses would then be reviewed post world cup. That way the RFU would be able to see which areas of the country would prosper from having a licensed team and the licenses would be allocated accordingly. This would prevent a north/south divide which we can already see happening ( I live in Newcastle, our next closest premiership club is Sale, roughly a 3 or 4 hour drive away). Each team plays every other team home and away and the top 4 or 6 teams could then compete in knock-out rugby.
There are more benefits to the english game than just player development through ring fencing our premier competition. There is much talk at the moment about the development of english coaches and how to be more succesful they must look abroad for experience. If the premiership was a competition which did not feature relegation, coaches would be able to build teams around attacking structures, as opposed to the forward and defense orientated game plans we currently see being implemented at the weekend. This would allow English coaches to develop young, exciting teams that play with flair and tempo, this being due to the fact that the pressure to produce results which comes with relegation would be eradicated.
All in all I do think the English game is behind, which is hard to believe when you think Rugby has been around in England longer than any other country (thanks Web Ellis…allegedly of course) and we have the greatest financial resources available to our governing body. So why is it taking so long for us to develop a system which benefits the domestic and national teams and would make the majority of English teams a force in Europe again.
For some of those old timers that are opposed to change at the RFU their time may be up. “If it is’nt broken don’t fix it.” I think the owner went blind a long time ago.
Clearly a well-considered post, so thanks for that. I would say though, that in order to fit in my thoughts into a readable length piece, I had to make sweeping generalisations and could not go into all the detail I wanted to.
I think if you want a single League, 14 teams is too many. 26 games plus play-offs is what they have in France, and they are already complaining about the wear and tear on their players.
My proposal was a 4 year licence, with the Pools fixed for 2 years, which means that the 4 teams you play at home one year, you play away the next year (and vice versa). The make-up of the Pools, as I keep saying in comments to posts, is irrelevant really, and I used geography when I could have used random selection, a seeding system, or a combination of these. Your point relating to teams missing out on “big draws” is somewhat irrelevant for me, as I would be expecting licenced clubs to be a draw for their catchment area, whoever the opposition may be. They still have 11 home games and 11 away games as they have now (plus any play-off action).
My final point surrounding fixtures is this. I would have the first 7 games of the season against teams of the same pool, followed by the eight cross-pool games in the middle, then the return fixtures against the same Pool at the end, which pretty much guarantees some crucial head-to-head confrontations come the end of the league programme.
Enjoying the discussion.
If we do lose the LV cup I think we could go to 14 teams before the need to split into conferences. Player burnout could be managed, for example, by enforcing rules for max starts/mins per league player in similar way to the internationals. For a move to 16 teams to be viable now broadcasters and sponsors would need to fork out an additional 33% to avoid the diluting revenues for the other clubs. 4 additional teams would need £40m+ of additional total revenue (Tigers income is ~£20m for a small profit) so I would only want to add when we have 12 financially stable clubs and not before. I would be very suprised if the additional revenue could be realised at the moment, so start with 12 ring fenced, improve the quality and therefore the value of the brand, then evaluate proposals for addition to league when broadcast rights are up for renewal.
Hang on a minute, so Tigers don’t get to play Bath, Wasps, Quins and so many of our old foes, let alone the new rising stars of Exeter? Where is the fun in that?
They play them once if you read fully, but again I stress, I split it geographically, but they could be split any way.
Its definitely a tough nut to crack. The main focus for me would be to get the franchises spread evenly across England. This would benefit the national team by ensuring there was an even level of exposure across the country to all fans and amateur players. Australia did it and they produced WIll Genia and James O’Connor from similar set ups.
I think this post has real merit, although I have to say I cringed at the use of the quotes! Scrapping the cup is a must, and I like the fenced off approach to the league. Super League seems to be stronger from the license structure, although there will always be teething problems with things like finance (the Crusaders going under), but with Wasps in the pickle they are it seems to be a sport wide thing. I actually really like to pool system you’ve come up with, it seems very similar to the NBA and NFL systems. The fact that teams ‘miss out’ on playing rivals twice a year is irrelevant because teams can currently get relegated and miss out on the games that way. Take Saints for example, the fact that the Tigers derby was missed when they were relegated made that first one back extra special. Perhaps a once a year derby would add extra spice to the game. I like the proposal, but the hardest job will be convincing the traditionalists who are only just coming round to play off rugby. If it’s marketed in the right way it could be a huge success. Perhaps you could have an annual drawing of the pools where the teams are pulled out of a hat at the start of a season – that would certainly start the season with a bit of drama.
I think this is a good thought-provoking article but don’t agree with the proposal for a ring-fenced Premiership, no matter what format it takes.
The gate for promotion is already too narrow, with only at most one side able to take a Premiership place. At least we have six or eight teams in contention during the season, and several of these believe that they could step up. A big investment in players and facilities is needed to make promotion feasible. That puts huge financial risk on any side that wishes to try for it, and all of the season’s investment can be thrown away by a bad decision on or off the pitch.
In my view it would be better to make two places available, with maybe one automatic and one subject to play-off. That way, a club that’s been demoted would have a fair shot at regaining its place, and risks would be cut a little for all clubs in the Championship that wish to bid for promotion. The effect over a number of seasons should be that the standards in the Championship would improve, rather than building a huge gulf between the first and second tier of English Rugby which would be created by the ring fence.