Easter ‘appalled’ by Prem Cup exclusion
NICK Easter has described the decision to exclude his Chinnor side and Cambridge from next season's Premiership Cup as “appalling and astonishing.”
Premiership Rugby, who organise the Premiership Cup, have only invited the top 10 teams from last season's Championship into what will be a streamlined 20-team competition, with National One champions Chinnor and last year's bottom club Cambridge left out in the cold.
It was first mooted in May that only 10 of the 12 Championship clubs may be involved but the bad news was only confirmed to the two disappointed parties recently.
Both clubs have been offered a small amount of compensation – but nothing like enough to cover the loss of three home games – and are now scrambling around trying to find matches to fill the huge holes in their fixture list.
Easter, Chinnor's DoR, has some choice words to say about the people running the game in England.
“Amongst all the celebrations of our triumph last year was the prospect of being in the Prem Cup, but rather than Prem Rugby saying ‘you're welcome, you're included, we want to help grow the game, have a little bit of time in the sun yourselves', they have pulled the rug from under us. It is a cartel wielding its axe of power. It is anti-competition,” he said.
“The show is the show and it has been like that for the last 20 years in English rugby. If you're not a top feeder you don't really have much say in the direction you are going to go or how things should be done. You have got pretty inept people making decisions most of the time.
“It's beyond the pale that they'll accept 10 but not the other two. We've not had a written apology, just ‘that's the way it is, deal with it'.”
The former England No.8 added: “No real reason was given from Prem Rugby or the RFU. I think the news was handed down to the Championship committee, and I am not sure how hard they fought for our inclusion. The Championship, to be honest, barely has a leg to stand on because of the death by a thousand cuts policy the RFU likes to put on the Championship.
“We all know how poorly the game is run in England. But is it a surprise?
Yes, it is, everyone was included last season, and to do it with so little warning, it is quite astonishing and appalling.
“But English rugby loves to move the goal posts in-season rather than have a structured, three, five or 10-year plan so people can get an idea of what's coming. It is what it is and we have to stand on our own two feet.
“We are trying to get the wheels in motion to know what to do with those fallow weeks. A lot of your financial planning and budgeting affords for the extra three home games.”
Chinnor have already had talks with Cambridge about playing each other home and away to help fill two of the blank weekends, and informal discussions have taken place with the parent clubs of Chinnor's on-loan Premiership players about the possibility of arranging friendlies. Other ideas are also being bandied around, with games against touring teams a potential option, but the planning needed for such fixtures may mitigate against them actually taking place.
It is a big mess, not of Chinnor or Cambridge's making, and Easter is angry that they are having to pick up the pieces.
“It's not great because you have got the players to think about as well, the majority are on match fees, and they negotiate on that basis, and whilst there aren't any guaranteed starters or bench positions, obviously, they all like to know they are playing regular games of rugby,” said Easter, the US Men's Eagles defence coach, who flies to America next week for their Pacific Nations Cup opener against Canada.
“But all of a sudden we have got a five-week break at the end of October to November and then we have got a seven-week break from end of January through to past the middle of March, which is absolutely ridiculous. You can't have a rugby season running like that.
“It is a very disjointed. You have to have a flow to a season. Our squad, most squads, are at their fittest at the start of the season. You play five games and players are chomping at the bit for more and you're not going to have a game for another five weeks. How do you keep these guys happy? It is very challenging.
“Something that looked very exciting as we were coming towards the end of last season and triumphantly won National One now has you thinking, ‘you know what, from certain points of view you are better off in National One'. At least you knew when your fixtures were. You had a run of seven games, two weeks off, seven games, three weeks off over Christmas, five and then another five and then another five, and then you were done, or along those lines.
“There were break periods to rest and recuperate sore bodies, and give yourself a chance to get over injuries, but this is just higgledy-piggledy.”
