Time to change promotion system to AP?

After London Welsh shipped another 78 points on Saturday bring the total to 490 in ten games there can be no doubt that they are not up to Aviva Premiership standards.

Is it now time to change the promotion system from the Championship? The advantages of promoting the top team are obvious:
1) the team that comes top in the league have demonstrated superior performance over a season rather than mediocre performance followed by two wins.
2) the promoted team would have more time to recruit.

Maybe we should even consider the top team from the Championship playing the bottom team from the Premiership over two legs.

I do not want to lose promotion and relegation as Relegation keeps the eague honest and promotion allows clubs to progress but the current situation has meant promoting a team which adds nothing either in terms of Rugby or commercially. Does anybody doubt that Bristol would have performed better on the pitch and brought more support?

I certainly would have preferred Bristol in the AP, but I think it's worth noting that Bristol and London Welsh finished the league with the same number of wins and losses.  Bristol were top of the league because of their more adventurous game plan and more bonus point wins.  That also meant however they conceded a lot more points, 150 more than London Welsh, who ironically had the best defence in the league last year.  London Welsh won 3 of their 4 match-ups against Bristol.

The biggest issue for me is that the London Welsh side that won promotion isn't the same side in the Premiership.  They may have brought in 'better players', but with the number of changes London Welsh made to their squad they were never going to be a coherent force against already established sides.  They made a much better fist of their last attempt in the AP when they backed the squad that got them there.  Exeter also made very few changes when they first came up and still retain the services of a number of them to this day. Plus, they rather critically I feel had an academy to draw from.

I would ditch the play-off for promotion personally. The team going up should be the most consistent side over the season (i.e. the team with the most points).

I feel the same way about the Aviva however I do understand the need to more money to be generated, albeit at the expense of the players' workloads etc.

funnyExiledScot wrote:I would ditch the play-off for promotion personally. The team going up should be the most consistent side over the season (i.e. the team with the most points).

I feel the same way about the Aviva however I do understand the need to more money to be generated, albeit at the expense of the players' workloads etc.

There is a difference. Winning the Championship play-off means promotion. Winning the Premiership play-offs just gets the team the honour of being named champions. It does not even man they are top seeds in the ERCC that goes to the top team in the regular season.

To me it seems that it's much fairer for the best team over the season to go up/win. I agree that it's true that in the Championship it's worth more. Also as a Worcester supporter this means that Bristol would be plying their trade in the Prem now rather than causing me lots of worry in the Championship!!

Would it be better to have the promoted team was known at the same time as the AP ends so the squad so they can get better players sooner.

funnyExiledScot wrote:I would ditch the play-off for promotion personally. The team going up should be the most consistent side over the season (i.e. the team with the most points).

I feel the same way about the Aviva however I do understand the need to more money to be generated, albeit at the expense of the players' workloads etc.

I think the rationale for playoffs to determine promotion from the Championship to the Premiership was partially due to the extra money it brings in.  TV money in addition to the extra tickets sold.  

For the Premiership, I believe a playoff is the only fair way to determine the champion.  The club season is tremendously affected by the Internationals, which to me makes the season a trial of club depth, not necessarily the best club on any given day.  The club season does still test depth to a certain degree as clubs need to finish in the top 2 (home semi-finals) or top 4 (road semi-finals).  But then it also tests the best teams on the day in the semi-finals and the finals (which team can rise to the event in a winner-take-all).  It also significantly raises the profile of Rugby with an increasingly iconic Final match at HQ in front of a large crowd.  Also bags more TV cash for the playoffs.  More crowds, more ticket sales, more TV money means more growth for our sport.  A true win-win.      

Brendan wrote:Would it be better to have the promoted team was known at the same time as the AP ends so the squad so they can get better players sooner.

I agree that something clearly needs to be done to give the promoted a more even playing field when recruiting players.  Exeter might disagree because they built from the bottom up and got it right.   Not sure the right answer, but the status quo ante does not seem right.

I really don't think that if London Welsh had had an extra month or extra thousands to recruit they would be fairing significantly better at present. The overriding issue was that they felt they had to change so many of their squad. To be competitive and have a chance of staying up you need to have done the preperation far enough in advance, arriving with a largely settled side that have played a lot of tough rugby together, good structures in place and just a few big additions. A lot of end of season changes and starting from scratch the next is not a good recipe for success

hawalsh wrote:I really don't think that if London Welsh had had an extra month or extra thousands to recruit they would be fairing significantly better at present.  The overriding issue was that they felt they had to change so many of their squad.  To be competitive and have a chance of staying up you need to have done the preperation far enough in advance, arriving with a largely settled side that have played a lot of tough rugby together, good structures in place and just a few big additions.  A lot of end of season changes and starting from scratch the next is not a good recipe for success

I agree. The proposals would likely help many promoted clubs. This London Welsh team is likely beyond all hope and always was.