Rugby gossip from around the websites - January 2012 edition

The following is a selection of topics from around various rugby websites and media; no responsibility can be taken for the veracity or otherwise of the views shown.

RFU/England team

Not much to report although there appears to be a paucity of comments on the Slaughter and May report-perhaps fans have lost the will to live!

Stuart Lancaster in his first squad has at least named some younger form players-surely necessary for the future and world cup.

The luxurious surroundings of Portugal has been eschewed for the delights of West Park in Leeds, hopefully players will soon get  used to flat caps and whippets.

Premiership

Relegation looms for Newcastle Falcons- or does it.  Once again the spectre of ground facilities and onerous conditions has been raised, under the guise of protecting the investments of the Premiership Clubs but in reality just a means to protect the cartel. With possibly only Bristol, Leeds and Nottingham being able to at least attempt to meet the ground criteria for this season Newcastle may yet escape-but do they really deserve to with only 6 wins from the last 36, which resulted with DOR Alan Tait being put on gardening leave.

Championship

Managerial changes at Plymouth Albion, no sooner had Graham Dawes had gone, and then his replacement Peter Drewitt was gone as well, as a proposed sponsor vanished as soon as he saw the books. I don’t know what the sponsor expected to see but he must have been naïve to say the least.

Relegation from the Championship seems almost certain to be from Esher, Plymouth, Moseley or London Scottish. Not surprisingly three of the bottoms 4 are believed to have the smallest budgets, adding ammunition to the case that very few existing National league 1 clubs could afford to be promoted.

Budgets

An interesting survey was done with estimates of the playing budgets required to make a challenge for the top three places in various leagues, which are as follows:-

Championship   £1,070,000

Nat League 1        £469,000

Nat League 2         £265,000

This has resulted in the usual caveats- what is included in playing budgets, and the usual denial from clubs that it bears no relation to reality, nearly all claiming to be lower.

However London Welsh appeared to have spent £1.5m last season and this to be near the top. We have already seen that teams like Esher, Moseley and Plymouth all with lower budgets are struggling in the relegation zone, whilst London Scottish with a budget closer to £1m are also struggling.

In National league 1 Cambridge have just sacked Bob Crooks and given notice to cancel players paid contracts, as income has not covered budgeted expenses.How many other teams in NL1 are in the same position.

I would suggest that only Jersey have such a large budget as quoted for NL1.

A lower league seems to have overstated budgets of £265,000, with the miniscule crowds and difficulty of getting sponsors. There are always exceptions and it is estimated that Rugby Lions have a budget of £400,000, which will see them promoted to NL2 and should see further promotions and if they get to NL1 will be able to match the top sides.