The RFU's continuing incompetence

Clive I am with you on all of those and I will add a few more:

11) Do not overburden hard working unpaid club volunteers with excessive bureacracy

12) Do not stress the h**l out of hard working unpaid club volunteers by being jobsworth's and punishing their club for minor administrative mistakes

13) Do not patronise the clubs who produce nearly all the players of tomorrow by awarding them just a  plaque when they produce an England International player give them some tangible benefit

14) Recognise who actually you owe a duty of care and responsibility to (its isn't just the 12 Premiership clubs)

15) Uphold your own publicly stated values

16) Be transparent in all your dealings

17) Slim down your organisation

18) Get your culture back to where it should be

19) Cut out the Bullsh*t

20) Stop lecturing to rugby clubs about living within their means etc when you are not able to do this yourselves and neither are most of the Premiership clubs

Outside of the current financial mismanagement and political chicanery I will provide three instances where any respect I had for the RFU disappeared.

1. Many years ago my son was playing for Cheshire at Twickenham against Middlesex. The two counties knocked lumps out of each other and after a high quality game Cheshire finally won through. The Twickenham announcer described the scene as the Cheshire players climbed the steps to receive the trophy and with unbelievable patronising arrogance explained to the crowd and the players that these were the very steps that England International players and Premiership players climbed to receive their trophies. Wow! Imagine how excited that made 40 players (some of whom had previously played International rugby and one of them Chris Sheasby with distinction for England). The fool at Twickenham clearly thought that the County players were playing a different game and weren't real rugby players at all............

After such insulting commentary I went exploring Twickenham with a friend (who was a Middlesex supporter) to make our displeasure known to someone. As we wandered through Twickenham's inner sanctums we came across a large and luxurious room overlooking the pitch. In there were many representatives from the Constituent Bodies being waited upon as they sat in their leather wing back chairs drinking at the RFU's pleasure whilst they took in the game. A lot became clear to me that day.

2. Attending a pre match lunch at Hudderfsield I sat next to a former RFU President. He was hospitable and entertaining and he disclosed to me that he was at Huddersfield to give them a wooden plaque for producing England player Luther Burrell. I was incredulous, was there no financial acknowledgement to help that fine club develop further. Nope just a wooden plaque............he was embarrassed and clearly very unhappy with what was going on at the RFU. He pretty much agreed with everythings I said.

3. The nail in the coffin. The hugely well remunerated Ian Ritchie (circa £750k a year for being CEO of a monopoly business!) strikes a shocking financial deal with Premiership Rugby which pretty much bankrupts the RFU and then he leaves to become.............the Chairman of Premiership Rugby!

I hope that is enough of an explanation for you Touchline  Expert

L33 while I tend to agree with you on most points.

On travel, while no other sport does this, Rugby is in a unique situation.

We are a minority sport, so there is significant travel (especially in the women's and girls' game).

But we have the income stream from the internationals that EnglandHockey or BBA would give an arm and a leg for.

So we could significantly subsidise travel for all organised matches.

Which would reduce one of the complaints we have at mid levels.

That does nto mean we should not look at the league structure to reduce travel.