Euro Rugby Row, who are the players and what are there positions?

English

Who’s running the show: Clubs have, more or less, won the battle with the Union to run their own affairs.

Position:  Want the competition to generate more dosh; then get a bigger slice of that dosh.  Have in fact negotiated more dosh for everyone but didn’t bother to ask if that was alright.  Want a better run second tier with fewer mismatches and more RaboDirect teams.  Want to have a greater say in running the competition.  Bullish about their future and if others don’t agree to the changes then they’ll walk.

Saying: “Give us your fucking money!”

Welsh

Who’s running the show: “Regions” are the ones who employ the players, but Union and international game subsidise them heavily.

Position: Clubs are desperate for cash so are hardly averse to going along with the English, feel a meritocratic RaboDirect might help increase attendances but worried about whether an improved second tier would be the safety net needed.  Also worried about agreeing to a cut in proportion of revenue, once the idea that the split should be changed is agreed the French and English could look at that inch and take a mile.

Saying: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”

Irish

Who’s running the show: The union in all their blazered, gravy soaked glory.

Position: Doing well on and off the field.  See no reason to change and are scared of what competitive qualifying might mean to the playing time of their centrally contracted internationals.

Saying: “I’m alright Jack”

Scottish

Who’s running the show: The union.  More gravy and less glory than the Irish though.

Position: Serious case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) if they introduced merit based qualification.  Also loath to any ideas to improve rugby in other European countries in case their own position is downgraded.

Saying: “Don’t panic Mr.Mannering!”

French

Who’s running the show: Clubs, though the union is more quarrelsome than the current English one.

Position: The English one, but politer.  Want the European competitions to be over earlier in the season so they can spend the end of the season concentrating on their lucrative and historic play offs.

Saying: “Speak softly, but carry a big stick”

Italian

Who’s running the show: The union, but currently in the throes of a power struggle with the Treviso president looking likely to take over.

Position: Worried about losing the exposure of top level competition, also worried about agreeing to a change in dosh distribution.  Would probably prefer countries to keep their own TV cash as it won’t be long before they are up with England and France in that stakes.

Saying: “Don’t you, forget about me”

PRL's Pot of Gold?

On Wednesday Premiership Rugby (PRL) announced a stonking new TV deal worth “up to” £152m with new players in the Rugby market BT.  You’d have thought this whopping TV deal would have been welcomed with open arms, especially in a double-dip recession, but no!  European Rugby Cup (ERC) immediately pooh-poohed the deal claiming that PRL had broken IRB rules, they don’t say what, and an ERC mandate, they don’t say how.  This is because as well as selling domestic league games PRL sold the rights to their clubs home games in some, as yet unknown, European competition(s).  4 hours later ERC & Sky announced a renewed deal for the Heineken Cup and Amlin Cup for 4 years beyond the current contract which ends in 2014.

PRL gave their notice to quit ERC on June 1^st, as did LNR (League National de Rugby) their equivalent in France, effective from June 2014.  You may have spotted a rather obvious problem with ERC’s plan at this point.  That is that ERC won’t exist past 2014, at least in current form and certainly not with English and French clubs, and even if it were to be saved at this moment in time it has no right to sell English club games beyond 2014.

Now ERC claim that PRL had no right to sell the package they did either; that is simply not true.  PRL have sold the rights to their own games in any future tournament, something they are completely within their rights to do.  After all the SANZAR nations sell their rights individually to domestic TV so the IRB clearly have no problem with this arraignment.

If reports are to be believed PRL’s deal is split into two parts: an £100m domestic deal and an £50m European deal.  ERC haven’t released the amount of their new Sky contract but last year PRL received £8m from ERC as their share of the collective spoils.  English clubs receive 24.5% of the ERC pot (alongside the French, the Irish, Welsh and Scots get 14% each whilst the Italians get 9%) which by my maths makes the overall total £32.65m.  That total includes the sponsorships paid by Heineken, Amlin, FedEx, Addidas, Land Rover and the TV rights to France, Italy, Ireland plus the TV rights to the Ulster, the Welsh regions and the Scottish regions in the UK.  This deal is, reportedly, worth £17m more for significantly less.  The French rights would be worth a similar amount to the English rights, with the sundry other deals also to be added on top it is hardly optimistic to state the total value would top £100m.   That is a 200% increase in revenues.

So why are ERC so exercised over PRL’s deal?  Obviously PRL have to some extent gone behind the backs of their European partners, but more than that ERC, or rather the constituent unions, are worried that the clubs are becoming too powerful and their own influence might be on the wane.

Will ERC really be able to turn their collective noses up to over £100m?  I doubt it, the Welsh game is in disarray domestically and is desperate for the cash, similarly the Scots, Irish and Italians heavily subsidise their domestic games with revenues from internationals.  The cash will surely be enough to buy the structural changes that PRL and LNR have been so desperate to achieve.

TMO? TM No thanks!

So a new season and yet more new rule changes.  Plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose.  But let’s not get bogged down in the depressing tinkering of the IRB laws committee too much.  Instead let’s focus on one specific change that is only a trial and is only in the Aviva Premiership (so we are spared it in the LV= Cup and the Heineken Cup).  The Television Match Official (TMO) has become a feature in Rugby since its introduction in 2001; this season sees its scope widened significantly with all incidents back to the previous time the ball was dead reviewable.  RM sees the logic in that, if the TMO can help stop a match being turned by a blatant block (such as the Leinster v Toulouse semi final in 2011, or the Worcester v Bedford Championship semi final of the same year), or a clear and obvious knock on then that is pretty much a good thing.  Certainly if you are on the end of a previously missed call.

RM has two problems with it.

First, the scope is too wide and not clearly thought through.  Forward passes and whether a kick has gone through the posts cannot always be determined on a 2 dimensional television screen.  Perspective is key and different camera angles can, will and do show different things.  Unless a camera is directly over head with a line marked on the field a pass cannot be 100% certain to have gone forward, presuming that only close decisions will be referred, most cameras will be at a slight angle and this will distort the picture.  For kicks the situation is even worse.  There is no way that a camera can show whether a kick, which has gone above the posts, has also gone through them.  No way.  It is impossible because there is no perspective, we don’t know where the ball is with regard to the ground and the posts.  The touch judges are the best people, much better than the camera, to determine that.

Second is the implementation of the trial.  It is only being used in Televised matches which means that half the matches on any given weekend, and 4 out of 6 on the final weekend, will not be under the same scrutiny and the same rules as the others.  Half the fixtures will have 3 officials watching and judging them whilst the other half will have those three plus a roving 4^th official who can intervene on foul play at any time, as well as use slow motion to decide exactly what happened.  A try on TV will be subject to vastly different scrutiny to a non-televised match despite the non-televised one being of potentially greater importance.  The rational for this is cost, apparently £1m per season which sounds a lot but is only £80k per club, I find that insulting and rather short sighted.  The cost is not great and to imply it is is taking us for fools, it fundamentally undermines the fairness and the equality of the competition plus once we have the extra cameras at the matches for the TMO we can also broadcast these games to foreign TV markets, red button for domestic markets, or simply for better quality highlights and internet streaming.  This probably would not cover the £1m out lay but would go some way to reducing the net cost.

The TMO in Rugby has the basic problem of allowing the referee to back out of making decisions for himself; this is not new for this season though it is still a problem.  The other major sports which have brought in review systems, the NFL, cricket, Tennis, etc. all have it so that the official still must make a decision.  That decision can then be challenged and if it is irrefutably wrong changed.  In rugby we refer judgement calls such as forward passes which the referee was in a perfectly good position to call.  Tom Varndell’s try at Twickenham this weekend was a case in point, the review showed some evidence that the pass was forward, but nothing that irrefutably showed the pass to be forward rather than flat.  Especially when we consider that this was early in the move and there were several passes and a ruck after the offence.  Wayne Barnes showed the weakness is allowing referees to “just check”, who can really blame a referee for using all the tools he is given?  RM can’t.  This is a symptom of a sick system, Barnes is a good ref who should be backed to make his own decisions. 

A challenge system would be better than the current one, but RM doesn’t believe it would be the best.  If the 4^th official could call for a specific instance to be reviewed by the TMO then the 3 on field officials would have to call the game as they see it, whilst we would still have the Television review option and wouldn’t have to have the unedifying sight of a captain having to formally question the referee.  The 4^th official could have until the conversion is struck to call on the TMO and the TMO could then have 2 minutes, or 90 seconds better still, to make his decision.  He could only over turn the referee if there was clear and irrefutable evidence that a call was wrong.