Are London Welsh the Worst Premiership Club Ever

[goodNumber10]

Article in Rugby World outlining why LW are the worst Premiership club ever:

http://www.rugbyworld.com/countries/wales-countries/london-welsh-worst-premiership-side-ever-42050

Some of the criticism has been scathing, The Daily Telegraph calling them “the most pathetic, forlorn side to play at this level since West Hartlepool at the ash end of the 90sâ€. Yet West Hartlepool won three games and drew another during their 1998-99 year in the top flight.

On the surface, only Rotherham, who lost all 22 games in 2003-04, look like challenging the contention that Welsh are the worst English Premiership team in history.

Response from London Welsh:

http://www.rugbyworld.com/countries...on-welsh-fight-get-equality-premiership-42228

According to board member Stephen Cole, the starting and finishing point for Welsh’s predicament is the inequitable funding system that not only prevented them assembling a competitive-enough squad last summer but continues to hamper their every move. Welsh made a far better fist of Aviva Premiership life in 2012-13, bagging 28 points (though five were deducted for fielding an ineligible player), but the game has moved on.
Read more at http://www.rugbyworld.com/countries...quality-premiership-42228#GVxjI2CHu01eC3I1.99

discuss.....

 

[SelimNiai]

Yes they are. Any response is just whinging on their part. Look at Exeter as an example of a promoted team via a playoffs not embarrasing themselves. The league hasn't changed that much.

Also, without the playoffs they wouldnt have even been promoted, LW need to remember who they are. A club punching way above their weight and one who sold their "London" name in search of 2-3k home game attendances.

 

[ratsapprentice]

LW are talking ********, frankly.
Terrible recruitment tactics and a coach that was supremely naive as to the task ahead of him (look at Burnell in the interviews when they won promotion and in pre-season)
Not to mention their promotion was also heavily influenced by players loaned from premiership clubs.


The fact that a playoff decides who is promoted from the championship is by far and away the biggest issue, although the funding is probably second to it.

The PRL are right to want to ensure that teams coming up from the championship actually bring some fans to the table, hence the old rule about needing 10k capacity.
I actually think the funding gap could be of benefit (although it is a rather primitive way of providing it) if it meant that clubs who did not have the financial resources declined promotion.
Unfortunately that hasn't happened!

 

[Tony Manx]

It will get more and more difficult for teams to come up and stay up without a wealthy benefactor bankrolling the salary costs.

Main reason for failures has to be recruitment of sufficient top league professionals in the time between knowing they will be promoted and the new season starting.

Unless being paid top league level salaries, players won't be willing to join without promotion!

The season needs to be adjusted so that if play offs are to remain, they conclude much earlier.

 

[welshglory]

The league is basically franchise based with the share funding system anyway at the moment. Might as well just go all out ringfence licencing.

Ambitious teams like Exeter with solid foundations in place will make their way up.

London Welsh are never going to be a proper professional premiership club they just don't have the structures in place and it ain't going to change for them.

Looking through the champ and national leagues there aren't enough developed clubs at the moment to have a promotion and relagation system and it doesn't look like changing any time soon. They are mostly just very competitive participation social clubs.

Only the ex premiership clubs like Bristol, Worcester, Yorkshire Carnegie have got realistic chances to have a got at it, not to mention they're in the current RFU academy catchment areas which again enforces a franchise system.

 

[goodNumber10]

Personally i like the Super League structure, bottom Two vs top Two.

There was talk of promotion & Relegation every other year not sure how that would work.

 

[McTallshort]

They are very poor and have no infrastructure in place to compete in the AP. Last time they got promoted and they were initally refused because of their domestic set up they appealed and were excepted in i said it was a bad idea but got shouted down very harshly on here by one of the mods. The point has now been proved if you want promotion you have to put the ground work in first

 

[dragos03]

They did a much better job two years ago, they had a realistic chance to avoid relegation almost until the end.

You'd expect them to do better in their second attempt, with the past Premiership experience. They have recruited a lot of new players both times when they promoted but this season they had more funds and got a number of high-profile names like Weepu. So, what went wrong this time?

 

[welshglory]

To be fair they lost a lot of the good players who helped in promotion the first time, to other premiership clubs.

So that didn't help at all. Most of the players who helped with the promotion push this time round were simply not good enough for premiership, so they had tp bring in some quality. Plus the fact they that they had a full time squad of around 25 players which is nowhere near enough to compete.

 

[goodNumber10]

it's no different to any other club in the Championship though, they know the outcome and the criteria of what they need to do, they should have put inplace decent succesion planning. Others like Exeter and co planned and developed their squads - so they only had to make a couple of signing when they were promoted.

Basically as @ratsapprentice has said they were completely caught with their pants down.

 

[dragos03]

Today the first choice (or almost) team of London Welsh lost at home in the LV Cup to what appears to the 3rd string team of the Saracens. Also, some of the players of the Sarries were not fully fit after playing some minutes in the exhibition match vs the Blue Bulls yesterday.

 

[TRF_Cymro]

The current set-up has embarrassed and tarnished the good name of London Welsh and the great players that have represented the club in the past. From the boardroom down to the coach, they have shown a complete lack of ambition and knowledge of how to look after the club. Yes the money is an issue, don't care what many say about it not. Yet that is not the only problem, the failing to put in place a structure after they were relegated the last time really was disappointing. The move to Oxford has been less than successful, it is about time London Welsh did a bit of soul searching and go back to some of it's more traditional values. Chucking money to sign decent players for two season and not getting promotion won't solve the issue either.

 

[SharksFan86]

I would say Rotherham as one of worst teams performance wise but off the pitch there were good things about the club.

London Welsh should have known better though after previous attempt in top flight and do seem very badly run from top to bottom.

 

[04perryo]

In some ways it annoys me to see London welsh in the prem because I personally believe that if bristol were in the prem it would be a much close fight for relegation, bristol actually have a competitive team that would make most prem teams work for a win unlike welsh Who seem to be getting trashed everytime they go out to play. I don't think there should be a play of for the championship it should be the best team throughout the season goes up simple as, I can't see the point in a play off system at all, although having said that this years play off is going to be a very tight one .

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Now there's a name I've not seen in a while!

 

[04perryo]

I like to make an appearance every now and then haha

 

[ratsapprentice]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Last RT suggesting Weepu to La Rochelle. Article also says L Welsh have 'big financial worries' and some players 'not paid for months'.</p>&mdash; Russ Petty (@rpetty80) <a href="https://twitter.com/rpetty80/status/565548745312305152">February 11, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[goodNumber10]

 

[goodNumber10]

even London Welsh are saying it now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/30837106

quite a nice article actually.

 

[ncurd]

"The current squad, including 25 new arrivals in a summer trolley dash, may lack that level of stardust but still feature ex-internationals like Piri Weepu and Olly Barkley."

Whilst I don't know the ins and outs that worries me more than anything to how the club has handled promotion.