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<blockquote data-quote="Prestwick" data-source="post: 598221" data-attributes="member: 13794">And what would you have the RFU do exactly? The RFU can&#039;t foist a decision upon the clubs, they haven&#039;t the power to do that and haven&#039;t had that power for years. That time is gone and its never coming back. If the RFU had come out on one side or another that would have arguably had made things worse. Come down on the side of the ERC, IRB and the Celtic Unions and they risk a whole new club breakaway which would make the breakaway of the Northern Clubs in 1895 look like a mere misunderstanding. Come down on the side of the PRL and they risk pushing the ever more stubborn Celtic unions into the abyss of self suicide which would ruin Northern Hemisphere rugby and thus harm the RFU&#039;s own gravy train.So it isn&#039;t exactly all that clear cut and easy as simply stepping in and taking a side and to be fair to Ian Richie and the RFU, they&#039;ve done pretty well in being the sane, mature go between in this whole saga. Forget about October 23rd. In the light of PRL/LNR saying, as they&#039;ve said for eighteen months now that they&#039;re done with the ERC, that meeting is now irrelevant. The ERC is dead and we need to get used to that fact. End of story. What the real focus needs to be on is this new shuttle diplomacy between the Celtic Unions and PRL/LNR and making an accommodation for the Pro12 clubs based on a multi-tiered competition. An elite H-Cup style competition for the top 20 teams, an Amlin style cup with teeth for the rest and a third tier cup for all the lower league teams from the Greene King Championship, the D2 and so on. ERC, the Unions and PRL/LNR have done their best to screw this up and the RFU are doing their level best to fix things. And we need to be thankful that they didn&#039;t overtly take sides in this.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Prestwick, post: 598221, member: 13794"] And what would you have the RFU do exactly? The RFU can't foist a decision upon the clubs, they haven't the power to do that and haven't had that power for years. That time is gone and its never coming back. If the RFU had come out on one side or another that would have arguably had made things worse. Come down on the side of the ERC, IRB and the Celtic Unions and they risk a whole new club breakaway which would make the breakaway of the Northern Clubs in 1895 look like a mere misunderstanding. Come down on the side of the PRL and they risk pushing the ever more stubborn Celtic unions into the abyss of self suicide which would ruin Northern Hemisphere rugby and thus harm the RFU's own gravy train. So it isn't exactly all that clear cut and easy as simply stepping in and taking a side and to be fair to Ian Richie and the RFU, they've done pretty well in being the sane, mature go between in this whole saga. Forget about October 23rd. In the light of PRL/LNR saying, as they've said for [b][u]eighteen months now[/u][/b] that they're done with the ERC, that meeting is now [B]irrelevant[/B]. The ERC is dead and we need to get used to that fact. End of story. What the real focus needs to be on is this new shuttle diplomacy between the Celtic Unions and PRL/LNR and making an accommodation for the Pro12 clubs based on a multi-tiered competition. An elite H-Cup style competition for the top 20 teams, an Amlin style cup with teeth for the rest and a third tier cup for all the lower league teams from the Greene King Championship, the D2 and so on. ERC, the Unions and PRL/LNR have done their best to screw this up and the RFU are doing their level best to fix things. And we need to be thankful that they didn't overtly take sides in this. [/QUOTE]

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