Rugby’s rickety structure leaves Championship’s future up in the air

P lenty of arguments are raging in rugby union and the next big battle is for the soul of the English game. There is recognition on all sides that something has to change. As Bristol’s director of rugby, Pat Lam, said last week, it has become a source of global curiosity. “Everyone around the world knows England have the most rugby players and the most resources,” he said. “They’re envious. So how are we struggling? You have to ask the question.”

What suits Lam and his club’s wealthy owner, Steve Lansdown, however, does not necessarily suit a Premiership rival like Newcastle, whose playing budget for next season is understood to have shrunk appreciably. Where in all this are the most fundamental of questions? What is best for the health of the whole game, not just the high-profile apex of the pyramid? And what, exactly, is ultimately the aim of the entire exercise?

This sort of debate is not exclusive to England, of course. It is raging in Wales, Australia and pretty much everywhere else outside France and Ireland, who currently seem to have multiple key boxes ticked. It also clearly has to encompass women’s rugby and cannot be viewed in isolation from the player welfare imperatives that are shaping the sport’s future.

Ultimately, though, it boils down to deciding what matters most. Nowhere is that debate currently more starkly evident than in England’s second-tier Championship, full of historic clubs trying to preserve what is left of their proud heritage. It is reaching the point where many of them are wondering if the Rugby Football Union actually cares about preserving them at all.

Listen, for example, to Nick Johnston, chief executive of Coventry RFC. As he told the Guardian this week, he genuinely believes the