How does the London Exile teams moving (maybe, probably not) affect England and Europe?

The whole issue with them moving brings about a number of issues primarily?

1. Does it count as overseas for English players? I.e could an English player get picked up by Scottish at the age of 14, work his way up through the system and then be ineligible for England whilst playing for his home club?

2. Where would they fit in with the European qualification? Could a situation arise whereby there are more London teams, if you include Wasps, than Celtic teams in the European Cup? Furthermore how does it affect European qualification for the Italians

3. It would mean there are the same number of sides from London as from Scotland in the Celtic league, and the increase in support for Wasps since there move to Coventry.

Given all the complications I think if the Italian sides leave they'd be better off giving them a year's notice or cutting down to 10 for a year and in the mean time set up two new Sides from either Wales and/or Scotland.

Don't think they are moving, 123. Pro12 have said that they haven't talked to either club formally or otherwise. Pro12 also said that the Italian clubs have not been given an ultimatum - 'pay or leave'.

Can't see the answer to 1 being anything other than a "no". If nowt else, an English born lad playing for LS or LI in the Pro12 would "qualify" for England via residency.
Re Euro qualification, as I said in another thread, if the Italians go semi-pro, there is no way they should be allowed near the top tier trophy. At the moment, even with full time players, the team that is second in the pool with an Italian side are more or less guarantee'd to go though as a best runner-up. God only knows what Toulon, Sarries etc would do to a part time team.
As regards where clubs play, I don't think is overly relevant. Qualification is league-based not a geographical thing as, I guess, LS and LI would be "allocated" to Scotland and Wales respectively

123456789 wrote:The whole issue with them moving brings about a number of issues primarily?

1. Does it count as overseas for English players? I.e could an English player get picked up by Scottish at the age of 14, work his way up through the system and then be ineligible for England whilst playing for his home club?

2. Where would they fit in with the European qualification? Could a situation arise whereby there are more London teams, if you include Wasps, than Celtic teams in the European Cup? Furthermore how does it affect European qualification for the Italians

3. It would mean there are the same number of sides from London as from Scotland in the Celtic league, and the increase in support for Wasps since there move to Coventry.

Given all the complications I think if the Italian sides leave they'd be better off giving them a year's notice or cutting down to 10 for a year and in the mean time set up two new Sides from either Wales and/or Scotland.

Exactly............... impossible to contemplate the complexities, and you've only touched on a few. Thus why Pro12 suggest the rumours are mischief.

123456789 wrote:The whole issue with them moving brings about a number of issues primarily?

1. Does it count as overseas for English players? I.e could an English player get picked up by Scottish at the age of 14, work his way up through the system and then be ineligible for England whilst playing for his home club?

2. Where would they fit in with the European qualification? Could a situation arise whereby there are more London teams, if you include Wasps, than Celtic teams in the European Cup? Furthermore how does it affect European qualification for the Italians

3. It would mean there are the same number of sides from London as from Scotland in the Celtic league, and the increase in support for Wasps since there move to Coventry.

Given all the complications I think if the Italian sides leave they'd be better off giving them a year's notice or cutting down to 10 for a year and in the mean time set up two new Sides from either Wales and/or Scotland.

1) Yes they count as overseas because the whole point of the rule is about the access agreed by the AP to England qualified players for the RFU. Will there be many anyway. I assume that they will be playing primarily Scottish and Welsh qualified players but having watched Edinburgh recently maybe not.

2) They are part of the Pro12 so surely they come from Pro12's qualification places.

3) Is there a Celtic league now with Italian teams in it? Are the exiled teams not going to be Celtic teams? Surely the whole point is that London Scottish will return to being a Scottish team developing Scottish players. As for the number of teams from London being more than from Scotland. London is far bigger in population terms than Scotland so that would seem natural. As I assume two teams will be primarily Welsh and Scottish in make up more Scottish and Welsh players will get exposure to European rugby than at present.

Having said that it is not going to happen anyway as leaving politics aside neither has the support to make it pay or a suitable ground to play at.

Going slightly off topic, but to answer your final paragraph 123.... , the interesting thing it does throw up for me is what happens in the Pro12 if, God forbid, the Italians were to either leave of their own accord or be thrown out. I don't believe it's all just mischief by a certain club/nation/person - the Italians have made their grumblings clear in the past, and as posted elsewhere Treviso announced last season that they were leaving. My point being that if they're thinking it then it is certainly a possibility going forward.

So what would happen: 10 teams is too few for my liking. Some pundits have mentioned this too. 12 seems like a good fit. But Wales can't IMO afford another region. I'd love a North Wales region. Or Anglesey even! Or anywhere to be honest. But in attempting to follow the Ireland Provincial model we're now more Union involved, run and financed. We're struggling to compete when funding 4 sides, so 5 would be a step too far. We've ditched the sugar daddies and they won't be back.

I can't speak for scotland but I understand their financial position to be a similar, and stretching to 3 pro teams might upset the balance in the other 2. Ireland, well they've run out of Geography so they can't fit any more in, but could probably afford it.

So I guess this is where exiles teams then start being thrown about. But who runs them and funds them? Why would the rfu? Crazy. WRU/SRU can't afford it probably. So who would these two teams be? Another emerging nation? But the same problems as italy would exist - travel costs, struggles to attract supporters initially perhaps, struggles to pay players of a good enough quality to be competitive in the league.

So perhaps 10 teams will have to be the compromise? Maybe we could bring in a Celtic Cup of some sort to bring the games total back up? Extra inter-pros? But too much of a good thing is bad. Maybe just give the players extra rest?!

Tricky.

Oh yeah, forgot:

Good post Griff. Nicely handled.

Perhaps a Spanish side and Portuguese or Romanian side?

Yes same problems of start ups and being at the bottom for a few seasons.... but that would be the lot of most sides just coming in.

Griff wrote:

I can't speak for scotland but I understand their financial position to be a similar, and stretching to 3 pro teams might upset the balance in the other 2. Ireland, well they've run out of Geography so they can't fit any more in, but could probably afford it.

)

Psst....I suspect the Irish lads on here have kept a bit quiet on this one. If you ever had the misfortune (or fortune if you fancy the presenters) to tune into TG4 for a league match, you might have heard the commentators and presenters refer to the provinces as Cúige Mumhan (Munster) or Cúige Laighin, (Leinster), etc. Cúige is an Irish word meaning one-fifth. Each province used to be called a fifth, before the Roman map-makers went all Latin on our asses and insisted on using province. Because - wait for it - there used to be five of them!

Oh yes - the royal province of Meath - once the homeland of the High Kings of Ireland - got fought over between Leinster and Ulster which ended with the Ladyboys taking a good chunk of it, and the Nordies taking the rest a few odd hundred years ago- before the Brits or Normans got involved.

But there's a quiet revolution happening, and any decade now, the High Kings could rise again, led by Grandpa Shaggy Horgan and Devin Tall Drink Toner, and Meath will strut the rugby stage once more.

Pro13 here we come.....