National lottery

I am not sure that is true.

However, I suspect that DDCMS has very limited bandwidth and it is possible all their decisions need to go via Barnard Castle.

Their priorities are set by the impact on the polls.

Soccer is always going to be at the front of the queue, as it has the largest reach (and the reasons for that go back to the earleist days fo the RFU). cricket will coem next and Rugby probably comes after the Olympics.

Government is dealing with two one on a generation crises at the same time. So the worries of one quarter of one minor department do nto get a lot of attention.

And within the RFU, they will want to sort out those things that have money attached first - so the bulk of their time is devoted to the 12 + internationals. They are desperately trying to resolve this year's cash flow - and they will leave the long term problem until later.

But I am sure John Inverdale will be speaking up for club rugby. He is committed to Esher in particular and rugby in general - and has the media presence to be able to get people to pick up the phone.