It never rains but it pours

No apologies from me today for continuing to chronicle the the plethora of troubles facing the sport of rugby union – and certainly none of them attracting ‘I told you so’ comments from me.

DOES THE THE GAME’S ADMINISTRATION WORK FOR EVERYONE?

Last week I spoke to a gentleman I know socially who was once an RFU insider on various committees and is still involved with the local rugby fraternity around his Midlands base. He reported that many smaller, amateur, clubs at lower league level are dying on their feet.

Whilst the RFU adds more corporate hospitality suites to Twickenham Stadium in order to maximise the huge profits it can make from international matches thereby allowing its expensive administrative politburo to grow exponentially, apparently out there in the sticks clubs’ playing memberships are decreasing, instances of squad members missing training have become an epidemic and youth recruitment is suffering.

Officially, of course, the RFU press/PR department routinely spews out ‘massaged’ figures supposedly documenting a never-ending healthy increase in participation year on year – the reality, however, is quite different. Though inevitably they have very different priorities and are frequently in conflict, the RFU and the elite professional clubs are effectively syphoning off the gravy for themselves and leaving the amateur game to survive as best it can, which is not very well.

 

PREMIERSHIP MONEY ISSUES

Hot on the heels of my recent post about the generally poor financial state of the English Premiership clubs, yesterday I saw a report in The Times by Alex Lowe, deputy rugby correspondent, on the Newcastle Falcons’ issues with HMRC

[Please excuse me not providing Rust readers with a link to the piece but I refuse to pay the Murdoch shilling for the privilege of doing so].

Newcastle are riding pretty high in the league table this term under the shrewd stewardship of formerly disgraced Dean (‘Deano’) Richards but on the accounting side of things are seemingly engaged in a constant fire-fighting struggle.

The club was served with a winding-up petition from HMRC over an unpaid tax bill for the third time in the past two years on 12th December. They’ve since paid off the bulk of it but there is still £100,000 outstanding and the case is currently scheduled to go ahead at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on 7th February. Newcastle posted an annual loss of £2.6 million in its latest published accounts (to 2016).

 

PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING DRUGS TESTING

In terms of ‘player shapes’, increased size, bulk and power have all been at a premium ever since rugby turned professional in 1995.

And so – it is believed – at all levels of the game has been the widespread use of products designed to stimulate these attributes. A decade or so ago elite rugby in South Africa was rumoured to be riddled with use of illegal performance-enhancing stimulants and/or those that promoted lightningly-quick ‘recovery’ from gruelling training sessions … thereby enabling the player concerned to go back and train harder more often.

The Rust takes a hard-line on those who use drugs in sport in the cause of achieving success (both for reasons of principle and out of concern for participant welfare). It therefore gave me no pleasure this morning to spot the following article by Matt Lawton on the website of the – DAILY MAIL