‘Rugby needs a reset’: Premiership collapses show need for total reform

S ometimes it is not the iceberg’s fault. Had the captains of some of English club rugby’s largest vessels been more focused on avoiding this season’s multiple shipwrecks they could easily have steered a more prudent course. Hindsight always helps but if your outgoings constantly exceed your income you are bound to sink eventually, as Worcester, Wasps and now London Irish can testify.

Most painful for those most deeply affected, perhaps, is that even the most myopic of lookouts could recognise this ever-present threat. Yet for whatever reason – arrogance, selfishness, greed, complacency, poor governance – the clubs and their governing body remained in thrall to the same old flawed model. Rich benefactor equals rugby success, right? Not if they ignore the basic tenets of sound business practice it won’t.

The upshot is the kind of intense, deep-seated personal angst being felt by people such as Topsy Ojo, who played 301 professional games for London Irish. “There’s been a lot of tears, a lot of pain,” confirmed Ojo, a one-club man who has been associated with the Exiles for 20 years. “People have committed their whole lives to this club through the generations. To not have that leaves a very big hole.”

Along with thousands of other Irish supporters this week, the former England wing has graduated from shock and sadness to quiet anger and a determination to fight for a brighter future. “One club [disappearing] was bad enough. To get to three is ridiculous. It shouldn’t have ended like this. Whether it was the prospective owners giving false promises, our owners not looking elsewhere … I firmly believe this could have been avoided. It’s very troubling but this has to be the end of it. The game’s had more curve balls thrown