Jeff Probyn column: Sorry Jerry Guscott, but I disagree with your Pro12 prognosis

I read with interest last week’s article by Jerry Guscott and his thoughts on why he thinks the Pro12 has failed to register any teams in this year’s European cup quarter-finals and how to improve their chances in the future.
His view that a lack of promotion and relegation make it easier for the teams to experiment and find new ways to play an exciting brand of rugby that will increase demand and revenues, really doesn’t hold water.
Every team wants to win and so will try to develop a match-winning strategy, whether through better skills (as Jerry suggests) or power plays. Ultimately, what will determine how a team can play is the personnel available and like it or not, all of the Pro12 countries added together have only around half the number of adult male players as England or France.
Then there is the huge financial advantage the professional English and French clubs have over the Celts, enabling them to stuff their teams with international players from all over the world with no remit to produce home-grown talent.
The English are fortunate, the RFU have the money to pay the English clubs to ensure a certain number of English Qualified Players in match-day squads but not necessarily in the starting line-up, while the French national side are counting the cost of too many foreign players in their clubs and not enough money to copy the RFU.
What has to be remembered is the Pro12 was the only way Wales, Ireland and Scotland could, through regional teams guarantee their best players a level of competition that would challenge them and keep them close to the standards of the professional club leagues in France and England. None of the Celtic nations has the strength in depth to form an equivalent league structure that would have produced enough teams capable of competing with the English and French clubs in competitions.
With the limited resources they have it is increasingly difficult for them to hold on to the best players who will naturally want to not only get the best deal they can financially, but also play at the best level.
As a player, you always want to challenge yourself and play in a strong team that allows you to showcase and improve your talent. Regional teams were the only real hope the Pro12 nations had of keeping talent in their countries rather than become ‘feeder’ nations for Europe’s two top professional club leagues in France and England.
So many of the players in these isles have the parental qualification to play for any of the home countries, let alone those players prepared to sit out the qualifying period, making it important for the Unions to try to keep players, especially the young players, plying their trade as professional at home.
If players (particularly younger ones) move to England or France to play, there is a substantial risk that they may be picked by those nations just to stop them being available for their country of birth (although not Celtic, the plight of Semesa Rokoduguni springs to mind) and that could have a negative impact on the long term future of the Six Nations.
Unfortunately for the Pro12, there is little they can do to increase the value of their product as Jerry suggests, given that the total potential audience they can muster if everybody in Wales, Scotland and Ireland were to become supporters, is around 12 million against a potential of around 53 million in England and 66 million in France.
It is a factor that was pointed out many years ago when England were offered a TV deal by Sky for £12m a year and were threatened with expulsion from the Five Nations because Sky offered the Celts only £4m each given relative audience size and potential growth.
Although the Six Nations remained on terrestrial television the remnants of the original deal still remain in the autumn internationals with England games shown on satellite as the RFU’s preferred choice, with Sky beating BT (the Premiership clubs’ TV partner) to renew the contract.
One could argue that it is the satellite TV money that has enabled both the RFU and its professional clubs to more or less survive the financial impact of professionalism. An impact that has drained the finances of the game in Pro12 countries forced to pay star players higher wages than they can afford, in an effort to keep them playing at home.
The unpalatable truth is, the longer professionalism is in place the harder it will be for the Pro12 countries to compete with the big boys (France and England) for players, as revenues are stretched to the limit and beyond.
Fortunately for the Pro12 countries they have some allies across the Channel, the French club owners, who with no regard for the fortunes of the national side busily buy up any and all the other countries’ star players they can.
The more players the Pro12 lose to the Top 14 the weaker it makes the French national side and gives our Celtic cousins the level of competition they need for their internationals to develop.
As long as the RFU can keep paying our clubs to keep EQPs in their match-day squads, the better the chances of England dominating the Six Nations – if not the world.