Jeff Probyn: It will be tougher now Welsh have shown their abilities

London Welsh got their first away win of the Premiership last week seven days after winning their first ever Premiership game – but have they really found their feet?  With Gloucester, Saracens and Wasps as their next three opponents they may find things a little harder than they expect.
Success breeds the confidence that they are capable of competing with the big boys, but it would also have sent out a message to the rest of the Premiership that the Welsh can no longer be taken lightly.
The early losses to Tigers and Quins would have ‘confirmed’ in most people’s minds (including the other Premiership clubs) that the gulf between the Premiership and Championship was as vast as everyone thought.
However, the hard fought home win against Exeter and the clinical way they dispatched out-of-sorts-Sale has made everybody sit up and take notice.
That makes them a danger rather than a training run, so now coaches and players at the other Premiership clubs will put in the same commitment they do against the established teams and it is how London Welsh cope with the next few weeks that will define their season.
Standing ninth in the table is probably better than they expected at this stage of the season, especially as they have yet to field their strongest team. And with the break in the Premiership season rapidly approaching they will be hoping for no major setbacks within the next couple of weeks.
Talking of setbacks brings me to the Premiership who suffered a major one in their fight to get what they deem as a fairer qualifying system for any future European competition.
With a number of the major French clubs throwing their support behind any future European competition and closing the door on an Anglo-French replacement it would seem that once again the English clubs are out on their own.
It’s not surprising that the French seem to have changed positions on Europe as they had always had a slightly different agenda to the Premiership and, while they may not be happy with the qualification process, it was more the timing of the competition, particularly the final that that was their main bugbear.
The big fish, in terms of money, for the French clubs is their domestic Top 14 competition, so they are keen to avoid a clash between the final of that with any future European competition and have wanted to move the European final to a slightly earlier time for a few years.
Meanwhile, the Premiership have not helped their cause by apparently having informal discussions with the South Africans who would probably be quite keen on a potential Anglo/South African club/provincial link up.
Being on the same timeline as Europe there would be no jetlag for players and the games could be shown live on TV in both countries at a reasonable hour and, given the large ex-pat communities in England and SA, no shortage of local support for travelling teams.
As both sides of the European argument are playing hardball at the moment I would not be surprised if it were true that proprietary talks had taken place, especially given that last season Saracens talked about playing at least one game in South Africa and the Premiership would want to have a fallback position should they be excluded (albeit temporarily) from any future European competition as has happened in the past.
Interestingly, if that were the case it would solve the ERC TV rights row as those rights would no longer be infringed if the Premier clubs were allowed to play in South Africa instead of Europe.
It would also enable BT Vision to fulfil their ambition of, in their words, ‘owning a new competition if not the sport’ and that may help them in their negotiations with BSkyB for viewing slots even if Sky are not happy at losing their English European cup viewers.
I say ‘allowed’ because any new competition would need the approval of the RFU and maybe the IRB where the clubs would come up against the age old prejudices that see anything that England try to do as arrogant.
When the RFU first bought BSkyB to the table with a promise to increase the value of TV rights for all, albeit with a larger payment for England than the rest, the other nations refused to talk to BSkyB and threatened to exclude England from the then Five Nations, despite the offer being far more than the paltry sum of around £7m per year paid by the BBC for all rugby coverage in the U.K.
At the time the offer was around £11m a year for England and around £4m a year each for the Welsh, Irish and Scots, three times the amount they had previously received. Sky’s reasoning was purely commercial, England had the larger population both generally and of rugby players and spectators (nearly 10 times the number of all the others put together) so they should get a larger payment for their rights.
In fact the figure was almost exactly what they had paid each of the Tri Nations countries for their rights.
That however cut very little ice with the Celts who said if we don’t play there are no rights to sell so it is either split equally or we stick with the BBC.
Some at the RFU sought a contest with France (who have their own TV deal) and South Africa, but in the end it came to nothing and the Celts got their way with Five and Six Nations coverage staying with the BBC.
Confucius said, to see the future study the past, therefore I think as far as Europe is concerned, the Premiership should seek compromise rather than a confrontation they cannot win.