National Two restructure: A success or failure to localise English Rugby Union
A restructure of National League rugby was announced in 2022 for the following season, Ben Pitkeathly reports.
The beginning of the 2022/23 Rugby Union season saw the RFU restructure the National Two league to reduce travelling, but did they go far enough?
Previously National Two consisted of two leagues, North and South, with 16 teams in each division.
But the restructure saw a move to three leagues with the number of clubs capped at 14 and grouped closer geographically.
Preston Grasshoppers Director of Rugby Alex Keay feels that the RFU could have done more to shorten travel times and localise the divisions.
Hoppers Director of Rugby Alex Keay discusses his views on the National Two restructure (Credit: Matt Salmons)
He said: “They didn’t take the structure far enough.
“There should be eight regional leagues, yes it would be imbalanced for the time being, but if you looked at it here for our games, you’re going to be talking Sedgley, Fylde, maybe Vale of Lune, all playing less than an hour away from each other so you make a big saving there number one.
“Number two, players are travelling, worst case, an hour which is good.
“Local sponsors are more likely to engage; there’d be less player movement because there’s no point you’re not going to jump silly leagues.
“They need to keep players playing this game, and at the moment, I can hardly speak about one club who sits there and say our numbers have gone up.”
VIDEO: Watch Alex Keay give his opinion of the National Two restructure (Credit: Ben Pitkeathly)
English domestic Rugby has eleven tiers, with the top four being national competitions and anything below that level split into regional leagues.
Players in the Premiership and Championship are professionals, while those playing in National One and Two are semi-professional.
Rugby Union only became a professional sport in 1995, which allowed elite players to dedicate themselves to the game, but those who compete semi-professionally still balance their daily jobs with weekly training and travelling.
Teams competing in the National Two travel up to three hours for games on a Saturday, with the furthest trip in the division between Chester RUFC and Tynedale RUFC, which is a 180-mile drive taking just over three hours.
Preston Grasshoppers take on Blaydon, two teams separated by 139 miles (Credit: Ben Pitkeathly)
This means players spend most of their day on a coach for 80 minutes of Rugby with little financial benefit.
A surplus of teams in certain regions has seen teams moved to their financial disadvantage due to their location to accommodate other clubs, an example of this is Chester, who will likely be shifted from National Two North to National Two West ahead of next season.
Chester chairman Dave Moloney said the move would cost the club an extra £10,000 for commuting to games, and senior players may leave because they do not want to do the travelling to places like Redruth and Exeter Univerity, which involves overnight stays.
Keay has experience in Southern Hemisphere rugby hotspots such as New Zealand and South Africa, which adopt a more localised approach to the domestic game.
The 63-year-old believes their hyper-local system benefits the sport’s growth in those countries.
He said: “In New Zealand, for example, if you play in Christchurch, you play in Christchurch,
“Christchurch doesn’t go and play in Wellington unless they go into a rep level.
“So if you play in Christchurch, there are a dozen clubs around Christchurch, and they’ll play each other.
“None of this Auckland will travel and play Dunedin which is about a seven-hour trip that’s just pointless.
“It just doesn’t happen.”
According to a survey by Statista, the number of over-16s participating in rugby union twice a month in England fell from 259,600 in 2016 to 133,600 in 2021.
No doubt the COVID pandemic affected participation but the disadvantages of playing the game below the Championship outweigh the advantages when structuring does not favour semi-professional players unless they have the ambition to progress their career professionally.
Chris Heal travels the country covering National League rugby and sees the impact that the restructuring has had on clubs.
Chris Heal covers National League rugby for The National League Rugby Review Show (Credit: National League Rugby Review Show)
Despite the positive changes in some areas, with clubs able to generate more income due to bigger crowds from local derbies, Heal thinks there will still be more adjustments to the structure in the future.
He said: “I think it’s something they are looking at something, to be honest, over the next couple of years to revisit what they already have at the moment.
“You are going to get some negative feedback with all of these things, and you can’t keep everything happy.
“But what they’ve done the RFU is they’ve gone with the majority of the feedback, and they tried to as fairly as possible.
“Right now, they’ll settle with it because it’s only been 12 months, but it’s certainly something that I believe they will want to refine.”
For now, the restructuring of National Two has solved some issues with player travel and increased the weekly revenue for clubs, but there still is some feeling that it could go further.
There needs to be a plan to keep player welfare at the heart of any discussions and a hyper-local league system below the Championship, which Keay suggests may be the most logical step forward.
