Jeff Probyn: Five-year ring-fence could destroy our game in North

Last week I wrote about the newly formed Rugby Coaches Association (RCA) and how it could be good for the game by stopping the merry-go-round of hiring and firing coaches at the drop of a hat by various Premiership clubs.
It hasn’t taken long before what I feared could happen – an RCA director making the first attempt to protect the jobs of professional coaches by calling for ring-fencing.
Sir Ian McGeechan has voiced an opinion that many professional coaches and club owners share, which is that there should be an end to, or at least a five-year break from, relegation and promotion if you want to see the best product put on the field, as this would remove fear and allow teams to experiment.
I have always had a problem understanding the view that a five-year break in promotion and relegation would make clubs suddenly change their style of play and improve the standard of the game on the field and then maintain that style and higher standard once relegation and promotion were reintroduced.
Geech’s insistence that the Premiership is a tough competition because if you speak to Southern Hemisphere players they will tell you it is the toughest competition you can play in because week-in and week-out you are working very hard to win very competitive games, seems to me a little over the top.
Surely those playing in Super Rugby also play week-in, week-out in a competitive league environment and are trying just as hard to win – if not, I cannot see how Super Rugby can, as Geech says, “be a better product”.
Geech is currently reviewing elite rugby and will present his and Peter Keen’s report to the RFU at the end of the year and in that report they will be outlining in his words, “a positive way which collectively, within all the constraints and parameters, is the best way of taking the English game forward at the top end”.
For me the important part of that sentence is the part which says, “within all the constraints and parameters”, as that is really what will define how far the RFU can change the way that rugby is played at the elite level.
If we are tied to the constraints of a club game and keep the Premiership and Championship, but without relegation for five years, and that is bought in from the start of next season, we could have a potentially disastrous scenario for rugby in this country.
Let’s imagine Sale were to be relegated and say Cornish Pirates promoted which is not beyond the realms of possibility, there would be no Premiership rugby in the whole of the north of England for a minimum of five years.
Which would effectively (given the current parameters that surround selection for the elite player squad), mean that no player playing in any team in the north of England would be eligible for that squad and subsequently selection for the senior England team.
That five-year period would in reality remove relegation and promotion forever as it would be likely that the rest of the game would revert to the amateur game and never be able to challenge the financial might and playing strength of those sides. But would that help the national side?
What has to be remembered is that leagues were put in place to remove the complacency of the old senior/junior system of the past where the top clubs would refuse fixtures from junior clubs that sought them no matter how good the junior side were.
Leagues have enabled teams like Exeter, Newcastle, Worcester, and even Saracens, to play against the top teams and that was good when combined with regional (divisional) rugby, for the England team.
Geech wants to increase the number of Premiership clubs to around 14 or 15 (similar to France) which would inevitably have a negative impact on the welfare of players unless, like the French clubs, the Premiership could increase the size of their squads and that would have a negative impact on the finances of the Union.
Although there is a steady, continual growth in the numbers of spectators in the Premiership it is slow, so any increase in the size of club squads would have to be financed from an increase in the grants and fees the Premiership get from the Union, particularly as there are currently just four clubs posting a profit.
If, however, we could remove those constraints and parameters, think of what could be created, we could keep our current club league structure but with a reduced level of Union funding for those at the top.
Then we could create six regions (NW, NE, Mid E, Mid W, SE, & SW) which could be for England qualified players only and play in an all British and Irish regional league with four Irish, four Welsh and two Scottish teams, while the French would take the Italians into their league structure.
The regions would play in Europe and so would help to create a more stable and sustainable European competition with eight teams from the B&I league, six French, two Italian and the top two teams from a newly established second tier competition containing the rest of the B&I league, the Top14 and the tier two teams (Spain, Portugal, Russia, Romania etc).
This would help in selection of the Lions and our Olympic Sevens sides as it would enable selectors to see all British and Irish Lions and Team GB players playing in the same competition against each other – but sadly it can never happen.
Those constraints and parameters were quickly put in place by Premier Rugby Ltd (PRL) when the game went professional as, in the first negotiations with the RFU, it was agreed that the RFU would not create a level of rugby (regional rugby) between club and country.
So even before McGeechan and Keen submit their review, we know that whatever their conclusions England rugby will always be constrained within certain parameters.