Welsh and the relegation/promotion system

[j'nuh]

In their first 5 games of the season, London Welsh have conceded 46 or more points in each game, teams running in 6 or more tries a game against them. It is looking ominous for Welsh - the question may be whether they will win a game this season.

Two questions:
1. Should the play-offs exist to determine who is promoted from the Championship?
2. Should the Championship start and finish a lot earlier, to give teams more time to sign players? (By the time the promoted team know that they are promoted, there are slim pickings left in the market, which makes it a struggle in the following season in the Premiership. Going forward, as the Premiership continues to drift in quality from the Championship, it seems that teams may have to start signing players before knowing that they will be promoted e.g. as Bristol have. But this may backfire at some point if a team fail to make it up, and find themselves with too large a wage bill.)

 

[ratsapprentice]

1. No - the league leaders should gain promotion. I'm not necessarily against the playoffs, however, particularly if they secure extra revenue for the clubs as they aren't all rolling in cash.

2. Don't know - preferably teams shouldn't have to bring in a load of players so it wouldn't matter.

 

[Peat]

1 - Strong argument for just giving it to the league winners as you need a strong squad for the Premiership and that proves the stronger squad - but think both Exeter and Newcastle came up when not 1st and did ok.

2 - I'm not sure the leagues are drifting away, Exeter came up and did great, Newcastle have survived, LW didn't embarrass themselves the first time around. While I think you'd ideally give them more time to make signings the reality is it will always be very difficult in a sport when players move at the end of contracts and try to secure moves early, unlike football, where a club can spend its way around the problem.

I think London Welsh this season are simply one of those freak things. There seems to be no way such a thing would happen to Wuss or Bristol if they go up next season, they are building strong squads that won't need major reinforcement and that's what you need really. So far there's a great record of Championship clubs building teams of younger players and unleashing them on the Premiership. London Welsh did not do that this time around but I think that's an isolated case.

 

[goodNumber10]

1: League Leaders - keep the playoff as a money trophy thing - but promotion on merit not a final.
2: no need, teams with ambition should already be building a squad that can compete or have put in place the ability to get players in.

 

[welshglory]

Having a very average coach isn't great either

 

[goodNumber10]

just further illustrates the point that Welsh had zero ambition to come back to the Premiership this year and have been caught with their pants down.

 

[psychic duck]

1 - Strong argument for just giving it to the league winners as you need a strong squad for the Premiership and that proves the stronger squad - but think both Exeter and Newcastle came up when not 1st and did ok.

2 - I'm not sure the leagues are drifting away, Exeter came up and did great, Newcastle have survived, LW didn't embarrass themselves the first time around. While I think you'd ideally give them more time to make signings the reality is it will always be very difficult in a sport when players move at the end of contracts and try to secure moves early, unlike football, where a club can spend its way around the problem.

I think London Welsh this season are simply one of those freak things. There seems to be no way such a thing would happen to Wuss or Bristol if they go up next season, they are building strong squads that won't need major reinforcement and that's what you need really. So far there's a great record of Championship clubs building teams of younger players and unleashing them on the Premiership. London Welsh did not do that this time around but I think that's an isolated case.

Just a small correction, Newcastle won nearly every game in the league when they went back up.

 

[slowprop]

I can just about accept the play off system in the premiership because some sides are much more impacted by international call ups than others. No excuses for the top finishing side having to play off in the championship though. Surely you want the side most capable of going the distance over a season in the premiership and that doesn't sound like the side who scraped in managing to get fourth place.

 

[LittleGuy]

Welsh now losing to Newcastle by a pretty significant margin at home. Can we just relegate them now and can the rest of their fixtures LOL.

 

[goodNumber10]

London Welsh suing the premierhsip for insufficent funding, i wish they'd just ***** off now.

http://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/feat...-premiership-rugby-over-giant-gap-in-funding/

 

[ratsapprentice]

I don't think an extra £750k is going to change all that much if they continue to be as badly managed as they have been.

 

[TRF_Cymro]

London Welsh suing the premierhsip for insufficent funding, i wish they'd just ***** off now.

http://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/feat...-premiership-rugby-over-giant-gap-in-funding/

We all get it now.

I do agree they need to shut up and put up.

 

[Peat]

On this score I have sympathy with them. I doubt it would have had the slightest bit of difference, but it is an appalling way to set about running a fair league. I hope they win on principle to be honest.

 

[Geordie]

1) The play offs for promotion should be scrapped. Whilst we won all but 1 or two of our games in the league...we stumbled across the line in the play offs and could easily have not gained promotion despite being the best team by a country mile. Thats just not right.
The other problem with the play offs is the timing. It gives you little time to confirm if you can sign players or not (depending if you have gained promotion or not) and much time to have a quick holiday - recharge then back to it.

2) London Welsh did themselves no favours bringing all those players after promotion. They have a very good team ethos and a strong pack. They should have simply added a few quality players to key positions...

3) They are just a poorly managed club...no academy etc. There are way better clubs than them...such as Worcester who have their own great stadium with amazing fans etc etc.

 

[j'nuh]

I don't think an extra £750k is going to change all that much if they continue to be as badly managed as they have been.

I don't think it's £750k:

The Exiles are to receive £1.5m in payments from the league this year, which is less than half of the top-earning clubs; Sale, London Irish, Gloucester and Newcastle.


Through July to September, in figures acquired by the publication, Welsh earned £350,000 while the four clubs listed received over a million.

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3551_9527300,00.html


So the imbalance would be at least £1.5m. The £750k (at least) imbalance was only July to September, i.e. for three months. Extrapolated over the course of a year, that would be £3m+. So Welsh would be funded somewhere in the region of £1.5m to £3m+ less than some of the other clubs. Which is an absurd imbalance, really.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Why are Sale, Irish, Glaws and Falcons the top earners?
I always thought it was the "founding members" that got the most cash, in which case (from current prem sides) it'd be Bath, Glaws, Quins, Tigers, Irish, Saints, Sale, Sarries, Wasps

 

[Geordie]

We get ours to compensate the number of our academy/senior players that are stolen away from us...and for the surprising number of England members we supply for such a small club.

And im sure we were one of the founding members werent we?