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Ring fence premiership for 3 years.

Perhaps, but if a team is in a relegation battle, they definitely aren't going to play their young players, are they?
If the young players are better, only a bad coach won't play them. I'd rather a coach take a chance on a 21 year old with a ton of talent than continue with a 30 year old who you know is useless.
 
Easy to say that when it's not your job on the line
Disagree. If it's my job on the line and I can see my starting XV is full of useless players, it's very easy to change otherwise the experienced team are bringing me down anyway. It's kind of relevant to Geordan Murphy at Leicester at the moment actually.
 
Sale have brought through a crazy amount of youth considering we're almost constantly in a relegation battle
 
Except if you don't have any realistic (or mathematical) chance, at which point you can play in order to win in the future (with no fear of relegation) or play to not lose now if you don't want to be relegated.

Young players often don't get good enough if they don't get to play.

Relegation only affects a couple of teams though so the argument will never hold ground. The real argument is why aren't our players or coaches that skilled?

There are too many questions and not enough answers on this though.

Do our U20s rely on better age grade coaching that equals out later on? Are there too many premiership teams watering down skill?

Are Ireland just better due to their multi sport back ground?

When I watch southern H rugby, the players look leaner, faster and way more skilled.

When I watch European rugby, the players look just as lean, same speed but more skilled at rucking, tackling etc
 
Do our U20s rely on better age grade coaching that equals out later on? Are there too many premiership teams watering down skill?
It doesn't help that four of the best English coaches are Andy Farrell, Dan McFarland, Stuart Lancaster and Richard Cockerill, all of whom are coaching in other countries.
 
Just from an outsiders view looking in. If the Premiership wants to expand 14-16 teams or so. Instead of going down the conference route, added league games or ringfencing etc. Let's just say they want 14 teams. Why don't they just play each other once, 13 games. Then separate the top 7 and bottom 7 in the table. Bit like the SPL in Scotland. Both the top & bottom sides play against each other again, 6 more games. 19 games in total.

Lost games can be made up by a cup compition like the Premiership Cup. So revenue wouldn't be hit too badly. In the cup competition, academy players/fringe players can get some game time. So it solves some player welfare issues through less league games whilst not diluting the standard of the Premiership by weakended sides.

Thoughts?
 
Just from an outsiders view looking in. If the Premiership wants to expand 14-16 teams or so. Instead of going down the conference route, added league games or ringfencing etc. Let's just say they want 14 teams. Why don't they just play each other once, 13 games. Then separate the top 7 and bottom 7 in the table. Bit like the SPL in Scotland. Both the top & bottom sides play against each other again, 6 more games. 19 games in total.

Lost games can be made up by a cup compition like the Premiership Cup. So revenue wouldn't be hit too badly. In the cup competition, academy players/fringe players can get some game time. So it solves some player welfare issues through less league games whilst not diluting the standard of the Premiership by weakended sides.

Thoughts?
Actually not a bad idea tbh
 
I'd prefer two conferences of eight. Home and away with top 2 from each going into semis and then final. For the finalists that's a 16 game max league season.

16 teams would cover all those with really serious professional pretensions. Three year lead time with the 16 chosen on properly examined financial and infrastructure criteria, ignoring league positions at particular points in time.

If we're seriously looking at ring fencing then in an ideal world I'd want some kind of draft system to ensure that all the clubs get a similar flow of talent. In my ideal world I would also want a large proportion of playing rosters and match day squads to be English qualified (there's a world surplus of lawyers, surely one of them's bright enough to find a way to achieve this).

Would also like a good geographical spread, but wouldn't run the conferences on geographical lines as that would all get a bit samey and I wouldn't want Harlequins fans to miss out on trips to Newcastle and other Northern laybys. The US is so vast that regional conferences make sense, but England's really not that big. My suggestion would be that the two finalists from the previous season would be in separate conferences but beyond that, to keep it fresh, the conferences would be drawn at random each season.

Financially, any funds from the RFU, TV, investors etc to be distributed evenly with no concept of prize money. In addition a cap would apply to the amount of external sponsorship each club can obtain.

Simples!
 
I'd prefer two conferences of eight. Home and away with top 2 from each going into semis and then final. For the finalists that's a 16 game max league season.

16 teams would cover all those with really serious professional pretensions. Three year lead time with the 16 chosen on properly examined financial and infrastructure criteria, ignoring league positions at particular points in time.

If we're seriously looking at ring fencing then in an ideal world I'd want some kind of draft system to ensure that all the clubs get a similar flow of talent. In my ideal world I would also want a large proportion of playing rosters and match day squads to be English qualified (there's a world surplus of lawyers, surely one of them's bright enough to find a way to achieve this).

Would also like a good geographical spread, but wouldn't run the conferences on geographical lines as that would all get a bit samey and I wouldn't want Harlequins fans to miss out on trips to Newcastle and other Northern laybys. The US is so vast that regional conferences make sense, but England's really not that big. My suggestion would be that the two finalists from the previous season would be in separate conferences but beyond that, to keep it fresh, the conferences would be drawn at random each season.

Financially, any funds from the RFU, TV, investors etc to be distributed evenly with no concept of prize money. In addition a cap would apply to the amount of external sponsorship each club can obtain.

Simples!

Not to dissimilar from my idea on the last page but your's is more of a conference idea with a random draw rather than an up/down system. Don't think it would be to hard to add 4 teams to the current 12 in the prem...

I always like the idea of a large, English qualified playing roster. I will always have the interests of the national team first, even if Cov Rugby do make the prem again :)
 
The NRL has a 16 team league without conferences and a single table rather than conferences. Each team plays 24 games but don't all share the same schedule. It's followed by 8 teams in the playoffs.

It shows leagues can expand without going to the conference system.
 
Could someone please explain what is good about Conferences?
As far as I can tell, the only thing going for them is that they're a way of avoiding telling a poor side that they're poor.
They have literally zero benefits over divisions based on merit.
 
In the Pro 14 conferences have helped foster new rivalries which weren't there in the past. They've worked extremely well in that competition.

The then Top 16 also employed the conference system until 2004 as a way to keep the number of fixtures down. That system so you play the other team in your pool twice. The top 4 in each conference entered new pools of 4, playing each other twice before semi finals and a final. The bottom 8 played the four teams from the other pool twice each with the weakest teams relegated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003–04_Top_16_season

Whether they'd work in the Premiership, I have no idea.
 
I'd prefer two conferences of eight. Home and away with top 2 from each going into semis and then final. For the finalists that's a 16 game max league season.

16 teams would cover all those with really serious professional pretensions. Three year lead time with the 16 chosen on properly examined financial and infrastructure criteria, ignoring league positions at particular points in time.

If we're seriously looking at ring fencing then in an ideal world I'd want some kind of draft system to ensure that all the clubs get a similar flow of talent. In my ideal world I would also want a large proportion of playing rosters and match day squads to be English qualified (there's a world surplus of lawyers, surely one of them's bright enough to find a way to achieve this).

Would also like a good geographical spread, but wouldn't run the conferences on geographical lines as that would all get a bit samey and I wouldn't want Harlequins fans to miss out on trips to Newcastle and other Northern laybys. The US is so vast that regional conferences make sense, but England's really not that big. My suggestion would be that the two finalists from the previous season would be in separate conferences but beyond that, to keep it fresh, the conferences would be drawn at random each season.

Financially, any funds from the RFU, TV, investors etc to be distributed evenly with no concept of prize money. In addition a cap would apply to the amount of external sponsorship each club can obtain.

Simples!

lower games per playerd, yet adding extra 4 teams means the number of games is kept high, different teams in each conference keeps it interesting year by year and we keep the play offs.

I do like it, so who would be the 4 extra teams?
Doncaster knights or yorkshire Carnegie
Cornish pirates? To close to chiefs?

And we would have to improve the facilities at the clubs that come in?
 
Cornwall definitely, and Coventry! Has the history, has one of the best attendances outside the top flight and that can increase. We can get a lot more of the cities rugby folk away from Wasps.
 
And I am totally biased, but the club is moving forward and the redevelopment plans look excellent.
 
Id like to see a yorkshire team come up,

So current prem teams plus
LIrish
Yorkshire/Doncaster
Cov?
Cornish pirates?
 
Not Nots, Yorkshire, two of Doncaster, Nottingham, Ealing, Jersey, Bedford - depending on how you wanna spread it geographically.
 
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