The UAFC

He has a very serious point though about it being a very fine line between wanting to develop your own players who will then possibly go on to represent their country and in so doing you have immediately lost them for about a third of a season, he is not totally in the Toulon camp of no academy, and just buy ex international players who have all the big game experience and they don't get called out for Internationals, they might be getting beyond playing 25 matches per season but they are certainly more than fit to play alternate weeks hence they have 2 teams of them.

At present the PRO12 is a development league for the countries involved so we are encouraged to develop players for the national sides, the English and French leagues though have lost that remit and though they still provide players they have self interest at heart, his final comment on would he rather England won the RWC or Saracens the Heineken Cup and he answered the same way as quite a few on here would and say his team and his reason same again as most on here, it has a big family type heart.

Now I don't like the way they go about a lot of things but I suspect Griffiths has more of a say in that department and I don't like the way rugby is going or the way the PRL went about it either but it has happened and the RFU and FFR let it go that way.

I watched it all and I thought it was mostly a load of bland rubbish. There were a few salient points - rugby is a commercial exercise going in the way of soccer, the English and French are far more important than the other nations, their clubs are more important than the countries (France and England), he doesn't care if he wrecks the tri-nations and the super-15, he doesn't care a jot about any other kind of rugby than the pro game, etc, etc. I thought it was pretty appalling, really. I thought his assertion that being involved in rugby had made him a better person said volumes!

If you few it from a purely business point of view, which I think he does, it's fairly standard myopic, self-interested stuff. There are two problems with that. Firstly his organisation is completely dysfunctional as a business. Secondly his myopia is damaging to the very structure and foundations of the game.
This is no shock for an investor who simply throws money at problems. He's not a creator, he made a fortune in property and invested it.

rocky wrote:I watched it all and I thought it was mostly a load of bland rubbish. There were a few salient points - rugby is a commercial exercise going in the way of soccer, the English and French are far more important than the other nations, their clubs are more important than the countries (France and England), he doesn't care if he wrecks the tri-nations and the super-15, he doesn't care a jot about any other kind of rugby than the pro game, etc, etc. I thought it was pretty appalling, really. I thought his assertion that being involved in rugby had made him a better person said volumes!

I haven't watched any of it but I think your assessment of the attitute of the Premiership teams is both accurate and damning rocky. I fear they will wreck the whole game is their quest for success for their own teams.

King Ding wrote: ↑Sun Apr 27, 2014 10:30 am Im just impressed Wray was able to keep a straight face when trying to let on that Saracens are hindered by the salary cap.

27 April 2014