Cov RFC Season 21/22 (3 Viewers)

Yes a very enjoyable afternoon with some quality tries scored.

Tougher games to come though. Wasps next Saturday

The starting wasps 15 had a good number of first team. Cov certainly were not over awed and put on a good display throughout. Yes the score was 21 : 52 to wasps but that doesn't tell the whole story. Wasps were stronger in the scrum and lineout in first half particularly but Cov were always in the game and put wasps under pressure with good work near the opponents line and great breaks from deeper. The difference in divisions did show at times.

Good work out for both teams, bodes well for Cov in the coming season.

Well done Cov another good afternoon at the BPA.

What does disappoint me greatly is how little coverage that the CT gives to Cov Rugby.

Even if they can't afford a separate reporter surely they could get permission to cut and paste articles. There is no excuse for not covering the club and there is clearly interest in the area.

A creditable 40-50 defeat at the hands of Prem Gloucester in I think the final pre season match.

At BPA Cov vs Doncaster 10 : 10 half time. Cov took a while to get going. Gritty game.

36 : 22 win. Well done Cov well earned and deserved

oldskyblue58 said:

36 : 22 win. Well done Cov well earned and deserved

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Donny ain't a bad side Good result.

Yes sorry my mistake

Might have been cold but thoroughly enjoyable game to watch today. It ebbed and flowed. Cov had the better of the first half, Hartpury the better of the first 20 minutes or so of the second. After that it was even stevens with a good ebb and flow. Cov won it with a last kick penalty 34 : 33. Great entertainment and a crowd of 2136.

Crikey, what a dramatic finale! My first game this season - really got the buzz for this from Wednesday onwards.
Good to catch up with a couple of friends I hadn't seen in a few months.
Decided to break the seal after 10 mins of the restart with the score very comfortable in Cov's favour.
Imagine my surprise therefore when I re-emerged less than 5 mins later and questioned the dodgy graphics on the scoreboard.
Carlsberg don't do sporting end games.......

I thought cov played well in the first half, perhaps the pirates extra quality in the second half won it for them. Entertaining game but in the end felt a little disappointed. Cov really didn't threaten often 2nd half.

The injury to the pirates player looked serious hope he recovers well

Can't help feeling the referee contributed to providing to the pirates momentum in 2nd half cov certainly didn't seem to get much from him.

21 : 31 loss
Attendance 2534

CRFC has a good feel about it at moment on and off the pitch making progress in difficult times. Good to see.

I thought the referee was ridiculously one way in his decisions especially 2nd half. Dont usually blame the referee but this one definitely had an influence on the game that cost crfc points. One of his assistants obviously failed geometry at school too.

I understand the injured pirates player had just returned from acl injury and was taken off to hospital with a leg break and dislocation

what is the clubs view on this

Rugby Football Union to vote on proposal for second-tier Championship reform - BBC Sport

seems like a down grading to benefit the Premiership at first sight and not at all about the well being of Championship clubs

oldskyblue58 said:

what is the clubs view on this

Rugby Football Union to vote on proposal for second-tier Championship reform - BBC Sport

seems like a down grading to benefit the Premiership at first sight and not at all about the well being of Championship clubs

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That sounds truly appalling. Presumably this is something, like the no relegation idea, that has come from the top teams. They seem to still cling to this bizarre idea that rugby is going to rival Premier League football in popularity and are so desperate to make sure they benefit from it they are damaging the game in a way that will ultimately come back to bite them.

I know its a different code but did make me laugh when Super League were celebrating their highest viewing figures ever as a result of having a match on free to air and it turned out to be 750K!

chiefdave said:

That sounds truly appalling. Presumably this is something, like the no relegation idea, that has come from the top teams. They seem to still cling to this bizarre idea that rugby is going to rival Premier League football in popularity and are so desperate to make sure they benefit from it they are damaging the game in a way that will ultimately come back to bite them.

I know its a different code but did make me laugh when Super League were celebrating their highest viewing figures ever as a result of having a match on free to air and it turned out to be 750K!

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There are other detailed articles in yesterday's Daily Telegraph if you can access them

oldfiver said:

There are other detailed articles in yesterday's Daily Telegraph if you can access them

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There is an RFU meeting to ratify or otherwise

Clubs could demand £1 million extra funding from RFU over proposed hybrid league

As some Championship clubs worry proposal is a Trojan horse to a Premiership takeover of the the league


By Daniel Schofield, Deputy Rugby Union Correspondent 22 February 2022 • 6:27pm


Last year saw Saracens beat sides such as Ealing Trailfinders to win the Championship title Credit: GETTY IMAGES


Premiership clubs could demand up to £1 million each in extra funding from the Rugby Football Union to place its reserve teams in the proposed hybrid league with Championship teams.
As Telegraph Sport revealed, the Rugby Football Union council will vote this week on a proposal from the Championship Strategic Review Working Group that would radically reshape English rugby’s second tier. Telegraph Sport understands that the group’s preferred model would be to run a cup competition featuring Championship and Premiership reserve teams as a “proof of concept” in the 2023/24 season.
This would then lead to the launch in the 2024/25 season of a hybrid league featuring Premiership reserve teams, Championship sides partnered with a Premiership teams such as Hartpury with Gloucester and “aspirational” Championship teams who want to achieve promotion. Cornish Pirates, Jersey Reds and Ealing Trailfinders or Doncaster Knights, depending on who wins promotion this season, would likely to be included this group. Under one model, the teams would compete in a conference style system flowing into a knockout competition.

Other Championship teams fear being permanently locked out of the second tier, unless they were willing to sacrifice their independence by partnering with a Premiership side.
“The Cup competition sounds good in principle but it feels very much like a Trojan horse to a Premiership takeover of the Championship,” a Championship chairman told Telegraph Sport. “Once you have decided on a direction of travel, how much are you allowed to deviate from that path? It would be a disaster for the game. You would be robbing the league of all its integrity and its meaning. It is a Premiership takeover of the second tier and the RFU are helping them do it.”
However, the concept has not received universal support among Premiership clubs, who are wary of having to finance a team to compete in a separate competition. Most clubs maintain a squad of between 40-50 players but injuries often mean that only 30 are only available at any one time and some clubs have already intimated to the RFU they would need a seven-figure budget to run a fully independent second team.
“Squads are getting smaller so there would be challenges putting two teams out every week,” Lee Blackett, the Wasps director of rugby, said. “To make it work, including your senior academy your squad would need to be in your 60s if not 70s. I have a Championship background from where it started. It is a great competition for the club game, it develops a lot of players and coaches to come to that next level. Definitely I am fully behind youngsters playing as much as possible.”
The RFU maintains that Friday’s vote will only decide a “direction of travel” and there would be further Council votes to sign off the creation of the hybrid league. Alternative options include leaving the league intact or in tandem with the Cup competition. However, Conor O’Shea, the RFU’s rugby performance director, is adamant that the status quo is not commercially viable in the long run. They believe a hybrid league could be bundled into the Premiership’s broadcasting arrangements, creating more revenue for the remaining Championship teams. The strategic review is composed of Premiership and Championship representatives as well as RFU executives and independent experts.
When O’Shea presented his vision to the National Clubs Association, representing clubs below the Championship, at the end of January, one observer stated that clubs where overwhelmingly hostile to the idea. “We were all aghast at the prospect,” a club chairman said. “I haven’t yet met anyone who doesn’t hate it.”
Meanwhile Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights, who meet in a top of the table clash on Saturday, remain in the dark as to whether they are eligible for promotion this season. An RFU board meeting will decide whether they have met the minimum standards criteria necessary for promotion to the Premiership in addition to winning the title.
Both teams have proposed extending their grounds to meet the minimum 10,000 capacity, although Ealing’s is phased over three years. They believe a precedent has been set by Saracens whose capacity was reduced to 8,000 when they were promoted last year as they redevelop their stand.
The teams have received little feedback on their applications and there are growing concerns over the enduring radio silence.
RFU accused of imposing move that could harm grassroots game
By Daniel Schofield
The Rugby Football Union has been accused of imposing an “undemocratic” mandate upon the grassroots game by allowing semi-professional teams to field reserve sides in the lower leagues.
In a mirror of the controversial Championship proposal, the RFU Council passed a resolution that will allow lower XVs from National One and National Two (levels 3 and 4) to compete at levels 8-9-10 for the 2022/23 season. The measure has proved to be highly unpopular with the grassroots clubs who cite safety concerns of facing semi-professional players and also fear it will exacerbate the player drain.
However, clubs in the constituent bodies would need a two-thirds majority vote to block the proposal from coming into force. At Hertfordshire Rugby Union, 16 of the 25 constituent clubs voted against the proposal but at 64 per cent that fell short of the margin needed to stop it.
For Chris Strack, who is director of rugby at Barnet Elizabethans in Herts/Middlesex 1 (level 9), the RFU’s measure has already created a bitter rift within the county. “It is creating factions within constituent bodies such that clubs are prepared to break away,” Strack said. “If we are put in a league with lower XVs we will refuse to play them. There is no real detail about how you could stop the tighthead prop from a Nat 2 club saying I don’t fancy travelling to Devon this weekend but I’m happy to play in the local fixture for the 2s. That could be really dangerous.
“The two thirds majority is undemocratic and is designed to suit the bigger clubs in the pyramid. The clubs from the bottom upwards vote no, but the clubs from the top down vote yes. They say one vote, one club but actually a yes vote is worth two votes.”
The measure was part of a wide-ranging future competition structure passed by the RFU Council that will come into effect for the 2022/23 season. It is understood that the Middlesex, Essex and Hampshire unions have all voted to block the lower XV after passing the two-thirds threshold.
The RFU insist they brought in the resolution after feedback from the community game that reserve teams were not getting enough game time. However Strack argues that this will benefit the big clubs in the pyramid at the expense of the smaller teams. “The concern is you see a flow from the smaller clubs to the bigger clubs and the smaller clubs will just end up folding,” Strack said.
“There are a finite number of players and if they realise they can get £50 a game playing for a bigger club’s second team then that is going to make it really hard for smaller clubs to retain players.
“Grassroots rugby is really struggling with numbers, particularly since the pandemic, and needs to find its feet before the RFU tries to push something like this through. Instead they have thought we can get a square peg into a round hole by using a bigger hammer.”

Premiership reserve teams are set to be parachuted into the Championship under a radical proposal by the Rugby Football Union which would completely reshape English rugby’s second tier.


The RFU Council is meeting this week to consider the future of the Championship while Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights are set to discover whether they are eligible for promotion to the Premiership this season. They are the only teams to have applied for promotion but their grounds will have to pass the minimum standards criteria.


Under the radical plan put forward by the RFU’s Championship Strategic Review, Telegraph Sport understands Premiership reserve sides would compete in a hybrid league alongside “aspirational” Championship teams who would, in theory, be eligible for promotion to the top flight.


An initial version of the proposal has already been unanimously rejected by Championship clubs but some fear that the RFU will force through the changes at the behest of Premiership Rugby. A formal announcement is expected on Friday on the direction of travel for the Championship.


“The feeling is that it will be presented as a fait accompli,” a leading Championship source said. “We have told the RFU that we hate this idea but it keeps coming back in some form or other. Clearly they want to drive it through regardless of what we want, our players or supporters want. It is going to be ‘this is what is going to happen, are you in or you out?’


Championship clubs have been involved in the consultation process. While some are in favour, many more are alarmed that a competitive league that has helped produce countless England internationals would be reduced to a glorified reserve competition.


Those driving the process within the RFU believe a revamped league will help release the bottleneck of young talent that is stagnating in Premiership academies. Particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic, many young players are going weeks without games. They also believe a league based on the best young English talent will be more attractive to sponsors and broadcasters.


It has been a long-term aim of several Premiership clubs to turn the A League into the second tier of English rugby at the expense of the Championship. In 2016, Nigel Melville, the RFU’s then professional rugby director, proposed formalising loan partnership arrangements between Premiership and Championship clubs, but this was sunk by top-flight opposition who wanted to prioritise the A League.


However, there is a split within the Premiership about the merits of the plan. With squad sizes reducing because of the reduction in the salary cap to £5million this season, many clubs struggle to consistently field an A League side without resorting to ‘guest’ players. One proposed split would be seven Premiership reserves sides with five “aspirational” Championship teams.


The changes would come into effect for the 2023/24 season to coincide with the renewal of the heads of agreement between Premiership Rugby and the RFU which determines England player release.


Meanwhile Ealing and Doncaster Knights, who meet this Saturday in a top of the table clash, are anxiously awaiting the RFU Board’s approval for promotion to the Premiership. Both have proposed installing temporary seating to meet the 10,000-capacity minimum threshold but Ealing have some concerns over planning permission. With no relegation from the Premiership on hold, either Doncaster or Ealing would become the top flight’s 14th team.

oldskyblue58 said:

what is the clubs view on this

Rugby Football Union to vote on proposal for second-tier Championship reform - BBC Sport

seems like a down grading to benefit the Premiership at first sight and not at all about the well being of Championship clubs

Click to expand...

CRFC and others have a detailed response/proposal at RFU Hq and will be discussed on Friday. One feeling is the "ring fencing" will tighten thus making the Premier a closed shop

oldfiver said:

CRFC and others have a detailed response/proposal at RFU Hq and will be discussed on Friday. One feeling is the "ring fencing" will tighten thus making the Premier a closed shop

Click to expand...

Update

Championship promotion (or not)

Closed shop by the backdoor then in effect.

Only way any current Championship team could play in the Premiership is to ground share which puts substantial money in to someone else's pocket and leaves no asset to show for it

I do not see any current Championship team being able to fund the ground improvements required for a few years at least, and they are all struggling to make ends meet because of the cuts to funding by the RFU.

Stinks really

Shocking

Odd statement from Cov RFC regarding Rowland Winter, what's gone on Kneeza?