Ambitious London Welsh demand clarity on promotion plan

London Welsh head coach Rowland Phillips has called for clarity over promotion arrangements before the new Championship campaign kicks-off on September 5.
With Premiership proposals for a 14-team top-flight and a moratorium on relegation stymied at the discussion stage, second tier clubs remain in the dark over how many sides will be promoted in 2015-16 and the criteria for determining who will be eligible to go up.
Phillips, whose Exiles were relegated last season with the worst record in Premiership history, are preparing for another promotion push. He told The Rugby Paper: “I don’t understand why, with four weeks to go before the start, we’re not sure what’s happening.
“As a competition, you need to know what the rules are before you go into it. With such a big competition and the actual prize at the end of it being so massive, I’d have expected some clarity over the promotion criteria to have already been nailed down.
“I don’t understand what the stumbling blocks are but it needs to be made clear. Is it one team going up, or is it two or three? How will that be achieved and will there be relegation from the Premiership? It’s strange that all this is being left so late.”
Phillips, meanwhile, is confident Welsh can put last season’s nightmare behind them to challenge and declares himself satisfied with a summer recruitment spree that includes Dan Leo, Darryl Marfo, Martyn Thomas and Guy Armitage from Premiership sides.
“We’re pleased with the quality we’ve got and that we have a good balance across the positions,” said Phillips. “We’ve retained 22 players from last season which gives us some continuity as well and they’ve gelled quickly as a group, so I’m very optimistic.
“The key thing has been not to drag any emotion over from last year and we’ve wiped the slate clean. London Welsh is a proud club, a big club and going through a tough season builds character. It’s in the record books but we’re only looking forward now.”
Phillips revealed that former England fly-half Olly Barkly will have a big say as player-coach, adding: “Playing at 10 at the highest level, Olly’s got a lot of experience behind him in terms of tactics and style of play, so we’ll draw on that and he’ll be heavily involved.
“Olly will work with OIlie Smith on our attack, while Matt Corker is helping out with our lineout and we’ve got James Buckland on the scrum, so we’ve got some very experienced, highly capable guys in there. All we’ve got to do now is get the guys performing.”
Bristol are heavy title favourites, while Yorkshire Carnegie are desperate for promotion, but Phillips is confident the Exiles can bounce back from their year of hell.
“Of course we can compete with Bristol,” he said. “We know they’re well backed, have recruited well, have outstanding facilities and will believe they’re a Premiership club-in-waiting, but we have top-flight experience and feel we can be very competitive.
“On paper, Bristol look the strongest team, while Yorkshire are ambitious, but we’ve got an honest way of going about things so we’ll play hard and try our best.”
Exiles chairman Bleddyn Phillips recently refloated the idea of the club joining the PRO12 – a suggestion that has drawn sceptism from certain quarters.
But Rowland Phillips says he would welcome such a move, adding: “I’ve coached in the PRO12 and it gives you a lot of different styles of rugby; the Premiership is generally very physical and extremely direct.
“From a rugby perspective the PRO12 is very attractive and talk about us joining is exciting. It doesn’t change anything right now because we want to be playing in an elite competition either way, but if it happens to be the PRO12 that would be fantastic.”
NEALE HARVEY