Current level 4, were level 2 or 3 - 14 teams (please correct any missing)

Tynedale     

Fylde 

Ionians v Tigers      

Leeds Tykes     

Wharfedale    

Chinnor

Question for National Two clubs, or anyone, what do you consider to be a reasonable long-term target? 

With the reliance on Dual Registration, Loan players mixed in with some full time teams and a drip of RFU funding, is The Championship a sensible option?

Answers on the back of the last letter from home.

What I think my galliform friend is asking is:

Of the clubs that used to play in the top two levels but are now currently at level 4 - do you find the current level more satisfying, or would you prefer being back in a fully national division.

And of the clubs currently - for want of a better word - enjoying life in the Championship, was the rugby better lower down the leagues, would you prefer to be in a regional set up, with potentially less travel and more local derbies

I look at the video of Lions v Roth on here and see about 50 people watching - In many cases the game really is not sustainable at national level 3 and we see a drift to where the money is at. The South

 

Would put them alongside Bedford, Coventry and Nottingham. I imagine their followers feel at home with these ‘old’ friends.

239 per TRP,  but then Tigers v Northampton on same day, however only 260 previous home game vs Sedgely Park

Another issue then, atmosphere.

They were in National One, so have travelled through 

as an aside, I see London Welsh are currently in top Level 5 with Jersey 2nd

**Edit - their Instagram account highlights plenty (6 players) of young Premiership rugby talent on show for the Rotherham game just gone. 3 Tigers players, 2 Saints players and 1 Sale Sharks player **

You should scratch Jersey Reds from your Champ list as that team ceased to be part of the level 2 set-up on the cessation of trading a year ago.

Jersey RFC's 1st (and only regularly-playing men's team) is, as mentioned, at the top of Regional 2 SC (level 5) with London Welsh (1pt ahead). Personally I support the club's current stance of going as far as is possible as an amateur team but not reverting to paying players, as happened here from 2006-13 (the club went from fully amateur to fully pro during that period, going up four levels, before the becoming a fixture at level 2 over the subsequent decade, lifting the Champ trophy but going bust in the process).

I'd hope Nat 2 might be a realistic ambition for Jersey RFC, maybe not next season but hopefully at some stage, but would expect that a fully amateur club would 'hit its head on the ceiling' once it had reached that level. Thoroughly enjoyed Nat 1 and 2 when we were there before and regretted only having one season in each...

I concur that National One / Two are comfortable leagues to be in for the quality of rugby, the relative proximity of the clubs and the financial burden and associated stress placed on the Committee in the current financial climate.

Some clubs will aspire to higher things but see how Ealing have stalled at the top or near top of The Championship. (cf Elthamians/Wasps/Jersey etc)

That's exactly how we feel.  Fingers crossed this will be our year, but beyond that we don't really expect to make further progress.

(Hopefully that doesn't sound like a lack of ambition, or that we're just there to make up the numbers.)

Alongside this, Birmingham Solihull, London Welsh, Penzance and Newlyn and maybe Newbury did play at the same time in the league before it was re structured.

Did you mean Launceston?

No. I didn't mean Launceston although they did play at level 2 for about

 1season in around 05/06

Penzance and Newlyn were a  club that I believe reinvented itself as cornish pirates. They had some sort of feeder team who played independently as mounts bay but that club folded . They reached Nat 2 level

You know what happened with the latter 2 teams.

Sainsbury's as I need some bananas. Hope this helps!

Sorry, it was the fact that Penzance & Newlyn are Cornish Pirates that led me to believe you were talking about another club that had played in the old National One and dropped out of the national leagues.

Waterloo were in the top flight for the first two years of league rugby and then at level 2 from 1989-2001.

Rotherham were at L2 from 1995-2018, with the exception of two years in the Prem (2000-01 & 2003-04).

Mounts Bay were a separate club and had no connection with either Cornish Pirates or Penzance& Newlyn RFC, other than an arms length agreement to use the Mennaye pitch for home fixtures. This agreement did not include use of the Pirates’ clubhouse.

They played in what was Level 3(I can’t remember what that league was then called 😒) before their funder encountered enormous business and family problems, and the entity fell apart.

I remember watching them at Waterloo.

Governing philosophy after the Ashley Levett catastrophe in 1999 has been to go as far as a professionally-run amateur team can go. Turns out this was Level 2 and we might have stayed there a bit longer were it not from some serious gaming of DR rules by first H***pury and later London S******h - and utterly disgraceful behaviour by Yorkshire Carnegie which I am sure many here remember.

Our view now is we are really enjoying life in Nat 1. The rugby is excellent, the opposition teams are more like us and we don't have to turn out (often) against a Premiership 2ndXV/Academy side who bear no relation to what the club in question could produce if they didn't have that kind of relationship. We have really enjoyed the hospitality around the league and the visits of other clubs to the RAG.

Tier 2 is such a mess and the financing of it so poor that the club is currently thinking about what might happen. Having taken several seasons to reach Tier 2 from Tier 3 on our long march back from the bottom, and then several more at that level, we know what we have faced before. But things look different now. The realistic figure of money from the RFU at Tier 2 is £83,000 (that much-mentioned £133,000 excludes the cost of insurance which the RFU itself seems to be negotiating and not very well at that).

That sum is not enough to pay for the additional criteria for playing at Tier 2 and so we would have to make a financial decision. When we went up in 2016, the funding was about £650,000 so given we pay players only a match fee with small win bonus, we could afford the added costs of minimum criteria. Now, those criteria are tighter and the funding has almost disappeared. In spring 2016, the club collectively decided to let the players decide if they wanted to go up; of course they did.

Now, it is by no means a given that if - a very big if given the form of several other clubs in Nat 1 - we won the league, we would go up. A lot would depend on whether it evolved into a league in which clubs in the lower half were expected to behave like zombies on behalf of Prem clubs. I do not believe Richmond would go up into a league where we were required to play a minimum number of DRs from the league above. But that is all speculative. 

Richmond spent 4 seasons (08-12) in Tier 4 "National League 2 South". I remember that fondly too. The crunch play-off game v Caldy 2011-12 was one of the hardest and most exciting games I have seen at any level. So, honestly, to answer the question, if the choice was between going up to 2 or down to 4, I would pick the latter. 

They never made it up to L2 in the hierarchy, spending five years at L3 from 1995-2000.  But during that time they were in Nat 1 when it was the third tier behind Premiership One and Two (1997-2000).

There is a transfer deadline, for the Premiership and Championship it is 21st March.

There are a few exceptions:

 - You can be registered as an adult when you turn 17, whenever that is.

 - If you have not been registered with any club you can register at any time.

 - You can return to a club that loaned you to another

 - A club can register front row players if required to ensure contested scrums in case of injury.

But an England Academy player can hold registration with four clubs at different levels - but only one Championship club at a time - two if one of the clubs has an England Academy.

I forget which club has the eleventh academy.