Rugby Matter’s Premiership Team of the Year.

As is the fashion at this time of year Rugby Matter’s names it 100% conclusive and unarguable selection.

15. Mike Brown

Mike’s early season form gets him the nod here ahead of Ben Foden and Geordan Murphy.

14. Horacio Agulla

Agulla’s general play has been exceptional and his moments of magic against Worcester and Northampton will bear the test of time.

13. Manu Tuilagi

Manu might have had an injury hit season but he is still a force of nature.

12. Anthony Allen

Tony Allen has been in storming form the past month as Tigers secured a home quarter final, he is arguably the key to Tigers midfield with the balance he brings between Manu and Flood.

11. Chris Ashton

Ash the Splash might have been grounded around new year with injury and the ructions from his summer switch to Saint’s hated rivals Saracens but his quality still shines through.

10. Toby Flood

Leicester have only lost one match Flood has started this season and gained 8 try scoring bonus points in 12 wins.

9. Ben Youngs

Ben Youngs has been back to his effervescent best this season and his play directs Leicester’s style and tempo.

1. Marcos Ayerza

Ayerza is one of the rocks that the Leicester game is built on.  A pillar of strength in the scrum with the hands of a centre he is a truly modern prop.

2. Schalk Brits

Brits is a mould breaker.  There isn’t another one like him anywhere in the world.  Like an extra flanker at the breakdown, a full back on the counter and with the efficacy needed in the set piece.

3. Dan Cole

Cole has really improved as a player this season displacing Castrogiovanni from Leicester’s first choice team.  The last professional to emerge from Robert Smyth was Martin Johnson and Cole is certainly a player in his image.

4. Jim Hamilton

Big Jim is an enforcer of a lock, known for his confrontational play his only real challenger for this spot is Harlequins Ollie Kohn.

5. George Robson

Robson is a canny lineout operator and good round the field, Quins rise up the table is based on a set piece solidarity of which he is a crucial part.

6. Steve Mafi

Super Steve has an ever growing fan club at Welford Road and it is easy to see why; eye catching tries against Gloucester, Quins and in the LV cup final against Saints and allied with a prodigious work rate and an efficient presence in the lineout.

7. Chris Robshaw

Robshaw has captained Harlequins to the top of the table for the first time and has proved an inspiration to his team.  Hard work at the break down and an improving linking game make him a stand out option at 7.

8. Roger Wilson

The Ulsterman is steadying presence at the base of Northampton’s scrum and provides powerful impetus to any attack in danger of stagnating.  Solid under the high ball and with a real appetite for work in defence.

Dominant Play Off Contenders and Lucky Wasps

Saturday brought to an end the regular league phase of the Aviva Premiership and with it some remarkable observations.  The top four sides were all undefeated when their internationals were available; save games against each others.  Leicester hasn’t lost a domestic game outside international windows full stop; this in a league where excellence is thoroughly frowned upon and where great teams in Europe are sacrificed on the altar of competitiveness at home.   And still the other 8 teams couldn’t defeat a single playoff team when the contest was a fair one between first teams.  Northampton have only lost to Leicester in two epic encounters where Tigers somehow bagged the full the 10 points, but dispatched Sarries at home 30-3 and defeated Quins 24-3.  Quins lost yet another Leicester thriller; but have dispatched Sarries at Wembley 24-19 with some last gasp defending complimenting the vivid attack.  Sarries might be the nations bogeymen with their, ahem, attritional style but they did manage to spoil Quins’ Christmas party at Twickenham.  All other sides have been vanquished.

At the opposite end of the table the difference is if anything more dramatic.  Newcastle have been relegated by 1 point; however since the world cup ended and teams returned to full strength they have earned 7 more points than nearest rivals Wasps.  Considering the above would Wasps have beaten either a full strength Saracens or Leicester as they managed in the first two weeks of the season?  Relegation in world cup years is always controversial as the international windows never affect teams equally but this year it is pretty galling and it seems fair enough to say the worst side has not been relegated.  That is how sport works though so the rugby fans in Newcastle will just have to take their medicine and hope next time they are good enough to stay above the fray.

Spare a million for the guys?

Every club dreams of a sugar daddy to fund their progress, their successes, and plenty of clubs are looking out for one.  But what if you are a pretty loaded bloke looking to dish out some sugar of your own, who should you go for?

Wasps are an obvious choice, but they are fundamentally a weak investment, their only tangible assets are their Premiership Rugby P shares and perhaps the 5 or 6 of their squad who would fetch reasonable transfer fees.  They have the potential fan base and the history but to ever get back to an even keel would require £20-30m+ to fund a new stadium somewhere in west London plus ongoing support.

Leeds have a PRL approved stadium (or rather squat in someone else’s) which is half the battle to gain promotion and have in the recent past attract 13,000 to Headingly, albeit for a Jonny Wilkinson Christmas visit.  But typical Premiership attendances of 5,000 in a 22,000 capacity ground which is due to be expanded is a tough sell to convince the punters that they need to buy a season ticket to ensure their ticket;  Championship attendances of around 2,000 shows that the fan base is pretty conditional on quality on quality of rugby too.  A move to a suitable sized ground could help them and in these fantasy circumstances isn’t out of the question.

Coventry are an historic club in the sport’s heartlands that after decades of poor league positions still attract 1,500 fans despite the attractions of European Champions Leicester and Northampton roughly an hour away.  They own their own ground, with one good quality permanent stand and plenty of room to expand further.  Located just off Coventry’s inner ring road the ground is very much more city centre than the out-of-town Ricoh Arena.  However whilst their core support is strong question marks have to be raised over the potential maximum size of a fan base when the south, east and north of Warwickshire is already pretty well targeted by the East Midlands behemoths.  With the football club in dire straits this city’s rugby club could blossom with the right stewardship.

Blackheath are another grand name of London’s rugby scene, unlike any of the others they are located in South-East London rather than on the A316 and have a ground with a large enough footprint to build a PRL compliant ground, the planners and NIMBY’s might make that hard to achieve but Quins have proved anything is possible.  London is something of a crowded market but its size is so vast that it can easily support a team in east.  Fan base is somewhat unknown but the growth of the south-west London clubs over the 15 years of professionalism gives plenty of hope.

Moseley has gone through some tough times in recent history but has come through it with a settled home on Billesley Common which has planning permission to become large enough for PRL approval.  Low attendances are a worry but with Birmingham being a vast conurbation without a single top club a period of success could change that.  A weak playing squad makes them favourites for relegation from the championship next season which would delay any plans for a season.

So if you are a Russian Oligarch, an Arab oil billionaire or a rugby man done good where does Rugby Matters think you should invest your cash?  Coventry is the obvious answer.  The football ground could be used for one off “Big Games” and the local area is a hotbed for rugby talent.  Reviving the old rivalries with Northampton and Leicester should help to grow a fan base.  If Northampton can become European Champions why not Coventry?

Leicester v. Leeds ... Rhinos!?! - A Cross-Code Challenge?

Cross Code Hybrid – the best of both or worst of all?  This week a cross-code challenge between Leeds Rhinos and Leicester Tigers has surfaced in the news reports championed by none other than ex-Leicester head coach Bob Dwyer.  Both sides are positive but wary, and so they should be as the two main cross code games attempted so far have been mixed affairs at best.  Wigan disposed of Bath over two legs in 1996 where Bath felt uneasy at going full tilt in the scrums amongst other things, whilst Sale and St. Helens had a very close game which was literally a game of two halves with one half league the other union; Sale came out on top by just 2 points.

Leeds and Leicester are in many ways natural bedfellows, both are largish cities with a century long tradition of support and have the largest fan bases in their respective sports.  Some form of partnership between them seems a very good idea in principal, but a Frankenstein match of neither and both codes at the same time seems very odd indeed.

The proposed rules are that League is played in the attacking sides own half whilst Union rules are in place once the attacking side has passed the half way line.  All this with a 60 second “shot clock” similar to Basketball in place of League’s 6 tackles.  Several sticky areas immediately come to mind, first that 60 seconds isn’t long enough to build an attack with Union rules in the attacking half, also scrummaging and line outs for the League side when attacking, whether League’s 40:20 rule would be in place, and how exactly a referee would be expect to rule when a player had crossed half way and such when stripping the ball would be allowed combined with League’s voluntary tackle rule should a team prefer to take a league phase?

Will this achieve anything for anyone involved?  That is perhaps a more pressing situation for messers Cohen and Hetherington.  What are each looking to gain?  Union has an international game League can only dream of, whilst League is better run domestically and gains significantly better viewing figures for Sky.  This would be a massive spectacle and gain huge viewing figures and sponsorship; it might gain some more national fans for both sides but the fundamental issues that limit League’s overall presence and Union’s effectiveness will still be there and will still inhibit both codes.

Could this be the first step towards a reunion?  Well under the proposed rules the answer is no.  A merger of the two games would be possible in theory and at amateur level but the investment in the pro games makes this a pipe dream at best and the current Frankenstein rules are far too complicated for a regular series of games.  The idea of a league containing Wigan, Gloucester, St. Helens, Bath, Leicester and Leeds is, of course, very appealing and will be mooted again and again but the ingrained hierarchies will never let it happen.