By JON NEWCOMBE

Coventry head coach Alex Rae has launched a staunch defence of the Championship in the wake of Bill Sweeney’s disparaging comments about the league and its value to English rugby.
The RFU CEO fired a pre-Christmas broadside saying that investing in the current Championship structure was effectively a waste of money because it doesn’t deliver and isn’t sustainable.
But Rae, who played for Northampton, Saracens, Wasps and Bedford, and coached at Jersey before joining Coventry in 2021, points to the 100-plus players who have graduated from the hard-edged Championship to play...