Should promotion & relegation be introduced to the English Aviva Premiership?

Question

Given that there are 3-4 reasonably good teams in the English Aviva Premiership, wouldn't it make sense to promote the top three to the Rabodirect Pro12 league and relegate the bottom 3 from the Pro12 to the Premiership? That way the English teams would get better quality of rugby, helping improve the club and player skills, and there would be more incentive for the lower clubs to not be relegated. With the improvement, the clubs then wouldn't feel frightened of the Heineken Cup and could participate in European Rugby at the level of the French, Irish, Welsh, Italian and Scottish clubs, instead of quitting as planned next year.

blm · Accepted Answer

Cute.  Of course the French are on board with the English clubs on this point.  And you totally avoid mentioning the root of the problem --  the fact that Celtic League teams routinely play their B-sides in Pro12 matches the week before an important H-Cup match.  You can't blame them for it -- after all there's nothing actually at stake in any of the Pro12 matches seeing as they can't get relegated.

The English and French competitions have a legitimate grievance.  And the issue is not going to be resolved until the Pro12 clubs are prepared to acknowledge this.  Avoiding a problem is not going to make it go away.

Frankly, I thought the proposal to cut the competition down to 20 teams and only let in the six top Celtic League clubs quite reasonable.

mark_the_legend_foster · Answer

what would be ideal is a British and Irish league with the two Italians team joining the French league but there's probably not enough money in that.

Mark L · Answer

Nice wind-up!  lol.

Mark L.

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Should promotion & relegation be introduced to the English Aviva Premiership?

3 Answers