'Blue Skies' Thinking required

The Saturday itself was a suitable culmination to a season. Late tries here and missed penalties there saw the bottom position change several times during the afternoon until a quarter to five, when the music stopped and Harlequins found themselves as the player without a chair. Record attendances have been a hallmark of the campaign. So many games have been sold out that several clubs, including Northampton, Gloucester, Worcester and Harlequins, are investing heavily to increase their grounds’ capacities.

This apparent financial security is highlighted by an analysis of the Zurich Premiership clubs from accountants Saffery Champness, released on May 9^th, which reported that six of the twelve clubs recorded an operating profit in the last year. English club rugby, it would appear, is in rude health at the end of the first ten years of the professional era.

And yet there are worrying signs that under the surface all may not be well. The national side has slipped to sixth in the world rankings only 18 months since winning the World Cup. And after five Heineken European Cup successes in seven years by four different Premiership clubs, only Leicester made the semi-finals in 2005. When there, the Tigers, with home advantage, were brushed aside by Toulouse. Not only that, but the other two English clubs that won their way through to the quarterfinals – Northampton and Newcastle – were blown away in their trips to Toulouse and Stade Francais respectively.

At the time there was a lot made of the restrictions of budget faced by the English clubs when compared to their French counterparts. But watchers of all three games will have noted the difference in skill levels between the French and English, and the familiarity the French had with the dynamic playing style now becoming the norm in top-class rugby.

There is much to commend in the English game, but financial arguments aside, it is now the time for blue skies thinking within the English game, aimed at the reinforcement of all the good that has come in the past decade.

To achieve this, two hurdles need to be overcome. Firstly, the recognition should be present that rugby is still a minority sport, regardless of the World Cup win. The average turnover of a Premiership club, according to Saffery Champness, is £5.7 million, around half that of a club in the Coca-Cola Championship.

Secondly, the inherently conservative nature that permeates English sport at all levels, from junior clubs to supporters of Premiership outfits to newspaper stalwarts such as Peter Jackson of the Daily Mail and the Sunday Times’ Stephen Jones, both of whom strongly support promotion and relegation.

This conservatism still has the utopian idea that a club can emerge from nowhere, climbing up the ladder to take their place, like Wimbledon and Wigan Athletic, in the sport’s elite. And this is true, to a certain extent. Where the backing and ambition has been there, like at Worcester, or where it is in Exeter or Doncaster, the set-up has been put in place to ensure long-term survival.

But if you visit most National League One grounds, you would realise that the money simply isn’t there. And most clubs would acknowledge that promotion is more of a curse than a blessing. This will be compounded next season by Harlequins’ £1.5 million parachute payment that will ensure that the playing staff can be kept mainly intact, therefore virtually guaranteeing an immediate return to the top flight.

It is not beyond imagination, even now, that should Harlequins win National One in 2006, they will be readmitted to the Premiership without a club going in the opposite direction. And should Exeter do the same the following year, and should their new ground be built, something similar will happen.

It is ring-fencing with a caveat – that the Premiership will be expanded along the lines of the NFL, so long as the clubs coming in have the required infrastructure in place. And when there are enough clubs, you establish conferences or divisions, each having equal exposure and a system of playoffs to establish entry seedings for the following year’s Heineken Cup, and leading to a Grand Final that will be a suitable end to the season.

One charge that has been levelled at the idea of removing relegation is the prospect of an end of season with sides left with nothing to play for. It should be remembered, however, that all those five sides who strove to avoid the drop this past campaign also were in with a shout of qualifying for the Wildcard playoffs and a possible place in next year’s Heineken Cup. Consequently, could anyone seriously say that any of those sides wouldn’t have tried its hardest to win their respective matches?

The salary cap has brought about this closeness in the league, but it has been a double-edged sword. On the one hand it has levelled the playing field, allowing every side to beat any other, such as Leeds and Northampton’s victories over Leicester coming when both the former were at the opposite end of the table from the latter.

It has therefore produced a league more competitive than any other in the world, capable of attracting talent of the likes of All Blacks Carlos Spencer and Justin Marshall.

But the cap has also brought about a lottery in which the smallest mistake within a match that leads to a one-point defeat has spelt relegation. Step forward, Jeremy Staunton.

While the end of the season may have been dramatic, the entertainment value of the majority of Premiership games I have seen this season has been less than desirable. Granted, there have been some immense contests involving English clubs this season, not least December’s Heineken Cup clashes between Leicester and Wasps. But Boxing Day’s game between Saracens and Harlequins was regarded by most to be the worst Premiership match in living memory, and the following day’s encounter between London Irish and Northampton was little better.

These are only two examples, but the general playing styles of the teams at the bottom have been conservative throughout the season. Yes, plaudits were sent the way of Leeds as they played their way out of relegation using an expansive style, but let’s face it, at eight points adrift at the bottom of the table, they had nothing to lose.

The Premiership’s offerings are in sharp contrast to the entertainment being offered throughout the rugby world, in the south of France, the land of the All Black and at the other end of the Severn Bridge.

The playing style of Toulouse, New Zealand and Grand Slam champions Wales demand one of two things. Either a team full of well-drilled world-class players confident in each other’s skills, or the removal of the threat that any mistake could lead to a loss, relegation and the end of the player’s livelihood as the club makes necessary cut-backs.

The nature of the salary cap precludes the former; therefore the latter should be addressed, a thesis acknowledged by some of those at the top of the sport.

Both Nigel Melville – Director of Rugby at Gloucester – and RFU Performance Director Chris Spice, on BBC Five Live, have spoken of the requirement, for the good of the English game, for more young players to be given their chance in the Premiership. There is, they argue, the need for up-and-comers to be given exposure to the intensity of the Premiership, an intensity without which England would not have won the World Cup.

But, as Melville says in Rugby World: “People like me are under big pressure to avoid the drop, or even a poor run. It means I’ll be happier playing a top-class player who is only 80% fit than play a good youngster who is 100% fresh.

“The hundreds of thousands of pounds we spend each year on overseas players could be put to much better use nurturing and developing youth.”

This is seen at Northampton. Spencer’s arrival at Franklin’s Gardens is great for the profile of the club, and I admit to licking my lips in anticipation of watching him play week in, week out. But his three-year contract has placed an additional barrier in the way of 21 year-old Luke Myring, a member of the Saints’ academy and, like Spencer, a fly-half. Myring has won England Under-21 honours, but there is little chance of him progressing without regular appearances in the Saints’ first team.

And even having learnt from one of the greatest exponents of the game, Myring may not have the chance to demonstrate his full range of skills and adventure.

As already mentioned, there will be the ever-present danger of a mistake leading to the conceding of points. In a league in which there are three or four dominant sides, there will be few matches in a season where this will matter. But in a league as competitive as the Premiership, and where the opportunities to redeem yourself are few and far between, the stakes are far higher. Consequently the play loses adventure, the risk-taking less and less, and the skills diminish.

Just look at the reaction to Danny Grewcock’s off-load to Josh Lewsey in England’s narrow defeat to France this year. At the time it was feted as the best move in the world, but it was a rare highlight in a stagnant English Six Nations.

Especially when compared with the French clubs’ play in the Heineken Cup, such as Toulouse flanker Finau Maka’s try two minutes into the semi-final against Leicester, finishing off a sweeping 60-metre counter-attack.

Such entertainment is possible throughout the Premiership, if only the spectre of relegation were removed. And the ‘House Full’ signs would still be up at every gate.

As Alastair Hignell says: “Rugby should be confident enough in its own product not to need relegation.”

Confident enough, indeed, to not be scared of some blue skies thinking.

© Chris Wearmouth