Sell all the RFU's assets to the highest bidder

Thank you, Tigerburnie, for this link. 

I suggest that you all put aside 1 hour and watch the whole programme. For those of us old enough to remember the game over that period it is heartwarming. 

Listen to Cliff Morgan's comments on the style of play he most admired (Cliff, himself, was a wonderful fly half - a predecessor to Phil Bennett, Barry John et al).

The quality of the game then was different but not worse than what we watch/play today. Today, at the top level, the quality of the pitches is better, the players are fitter, the game is faster. Yesteryear the game enjoyed more skilful creativity and less crash bang wallop. Scrummaging took far less time and required the ball to be put in straight meaning that hookers had a proper job to do. 

I'm getting all misty-eyed now so will close.

This is an old program from rugby special at 30 years old, I tried to get it onto a video editor to give you just the relevant bit, but failed, bit of a luddite here.

Nigel Starmer Smith was talking about the future of the game in the professional era,  right near the end if you want  skip rough the program, someone should send a copy to the RFU.

Premiership fan here.

I think this is a great idea and should definitely be on the agenda.  The RFU tries to do everything and therefore fails at everything.

A new settlement where the true amateur participation games looks after itself, as does the nationwide semi pro game & finally the professional game.  If clubs want to pay players they should be regulated differently to true amateurs and if they want to pay them enough to be full time employers they should be stiffer tests again.

Personally I'd perhaps just sell off a stake in Twickenham & retain the amateur clubs owning 60% of it as ongoing income, but yeah I think seperating out functions would be a genuinely good idea.

That means a simple clearly explained problem/how it affects your club/solution that chimes with lv10 old farts rfc and ambitious Nat1 teams

This would never pass a root cause analysis. You are working on a premises that because X has a problem, Y and Z must also have the same problem and therefore if we solve Xs problem we have also solved Y and Z problem.

The fact is there are many problems and different parts of the game have different issues. You are taking the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut when sometimes to need to apply a scalpel. 

1.Championship clubs have an issue around the structure of the competition going forward. Almost zero Impact on rest of members clubs, then only those clubs looking at promotion into second tier. 

2.National 1 clubs have an issue about splitting the league. General impact, a reorganisation of the league structure, happens almost every other season and the game goes one. Some would say it's an occupational hazard. 

4.RFU governance/distribution of RFU money to Premiership clubs.  This is a potentially large issue but you are failing miserably to sell the problem to the likes of Old Farts RFC who don't see any effect to them ad they never got any money anyway and most decisions at their level is taken by the County and not the upper echelon of the game. It is these clubs that you need to influence and identify with them and their concerns and I'll tell you now it is not the first two points but you seem to want to lump them together. That's an immediate switch off. 

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Original post edited - just for absolute clarity, and for the benefit of those finding this all a bit too much to grasp. Apologies Big Eddie, my computer illiteracy prevents me from knowing how to type in your preferred Comrade Red font. 

N.B. I really do think it would be good to move on from this 'back and forth' that someone else described it as. I'll therefore refrain from any further posts on this topic.