The Rugby Dilemma – Club or Country?? (From Worcester News)

The Rugby Dilemma – Club or Country??

6:48pm Thursday 1st February 2007

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Rugby Union in England has been in turmoil since it went professional over 10 years ago. The list of contentious issues between the clubs, who run the Guinness Premiership and the Rugby Football Union (RFU), is as long as your arm. Needless to say most of them are related to power and money.

As rugby fan I do wish that they could get it all sorted out once and for all. Who gets to have the players and when is the biggest issue. On one side you have the ‘All for England’ contingent, who believe that players should be available to play for England whenever required as playing for your country is the highest honour in the game.

On the other side there is the ‘Clubs Rule’ group who feel that the clubs develop the players and pay them, so why should they have to do without the top players for as many as 10 Premiership games out of 22.

The clubs do get compensated financially for the loss of their International players but there is a great deal of money to be earned by getting into the Heineken Cup to play the top teams in Europe, and in order to do that they need their best team out as often as possible. Some club fans feel that losing so many top names for so long diminishes the value of the league.

The RFU and the clubs are deep in negotiation as to what will happen next season when there is the World Cup during the Autumn. It is going to cause huge problems for all the clubs in the Premiership as nearly all have players drawn from all over the World. Some squads, such as Leicester Tigers for example could lose 15 or so players. How can they be expected to play league games when they will be so depleted? Other leagues in Europe, like France where the World Cup is being held, are suspending their leagues for the duration of the competition. So will England do the same? Let’s hope so or there will be chaos.

I was looking forward to the World Cup as it will be rugby at its absolute best. But I have to say International rugby is not as passionate and intense as club rugby. I’ve been to Twickenham several times to watch England and find it a cold and dispassionate place where the atmosphere is just flat. On the other hand I saw the Guinness Premiership Final there last season, between Sale Sharks and Leicester Tigers in the pouring rain and the place just rocked!! And don’t get me started on the Heineken Cup final in Cardiff last year between Munster and Biarritz …The atmosphere was spine tingling and I was neutral!!

But despite my misgivings, I will be sat home this weekend cheering England on and Wales too, as my husband is Welsh and Chris Horsman of the Warriors is playing for Wales. So good luck to England and Chris....