It is clear that a new deal for the Premiership Clubs and the introduction of a new Premiership II franchise system is likely to finally sweep away the pretence of clubs being able to rise through the pyramid to the very top of English Rugby.

It appears that the unelected Executive Management of the RFU may be able to drive these changes through without any effective right of constitutional challenge from member clubs. Most posters on Rolling Maul believe this to be an outrage too far.

The three polls I will put up shortly are designed to show the strength of feeling from grassroots rugby. The Poll questions are not mine but have been suggested to me by other very respected posters on Rolling Maul. I will make the polls one vote per person with no comments. Please put any comments you wish to make under this thread.

Rolling Maul is the most informative, balanced and well moderated forum in English Rugby and is probably the best such forum in the entire world of rugby. It's opinions and content are regularly read by the RFU and King Billy himself. 

I have put up many polls in the past but rarely have they received more than 50 or so responses. I urge everyone to encourage their friends and colleagues to sign up to become a member of Rolling Maul and to vote in these polls. Weight of numbers will be so important ....not only to show King Billy the strength of feeling from the Rugby Community but also to provide data for other Rugby Media to latch onto.

I cannot agree with your Yes or No to Poll 1.

Good feedback .....I will change accordingly

On some days my only post may be to exhort everyone to vote, although I hope to be able to share insights and data.

So far:

Poll 2 a 97% negative view

Poll 3 a 97% negative view

However to be meaningful we need the numbers casting their votes to be considerably greater....only then will anyone take the Polls seriously. Please vote and encourage others to vote

Rugby is a minority sport and to understand the full scale of the outrage requires research and understanding, something that the media generally will not put the effort into unless they believe there is going to be a big enough audience.

This is why these Three Polls and the numbers voting are important. If we have a big enough vote then I can get the attention of the BBC and the National media. The strength of feeling is clear, this morning the negative view of the RFU's Executive Management is as follows

Poll 1 96%

Poll 2 98%

Poll 3 98%

However, only 50 or so people have voted so far. We probably need many hundreds if not thousands to attract the attention of the National Media. If I approach them with a Poll numbering 50 or 60 they will not take the data seriously.

Bill Sweeney has hacked your account!

They are all in Clubhouse Chat

Please message Richard Lowther if anyone has issues regarding voting. We need hundreds and possibly thousands voting!!

In clubhouse chat DGS

While I appreciate the intention behind these polls, even if we got everyone who attended a Championship or National League match to sign them, that is unlikely to be more than 35,000.

What the "powers that be" will point to is the 75,000 who went to Twickenham for the Big Game and 10,000+ to each of the other four premiership matches. 

I understand Camquin but if we have a few hundred votes that are circa 97% against the RFU's views that will enable these statistics to be quoted and put in front of the National Media and the RFU. The opposition to what the RFU is proposing isn't marginal..........so far only about 2% of respondents are in favour of what the RFU are doing. I have run many polls on Rolling Maul......I have never seen such an almost unanimous response!

If we do not show the strength of opposition the RFU can spin their shenanigans as being accepted by the game at large. This is clearly not the case.

We have to register our dissent and Rolling Maul is a very good forum to do it!

What you are not doing it talking to the clubs and supporters outside of this small group who will feel they no effected by any of the changes - and it those that you need to motivate in order to get the changes that you want to see. 

I watch different levels of the game each week and most of the feedback from the 'Community' game is that they don't care about anything that doesn't directly affect them.  What you have to do is show that the changes been made or the changes you want to make do affect them.  So far I am not seeing this reflected in any proposals. 

There has not even been a collective statement from Championship clubs yet.

What has The Rugby Paper got to say this week? 

Richard, I understand your point but I do believe these issues are fundamental to how the club game in England is administered by the RFU

Am I able to post a succinct post on each of the sections of the Rolling Maul setting out why I believe these issues matter to all rugby clubs and then directing them to the Clubhouse Chat section to post in the Three Polls?

Not sure that Pirates will be full time for much longer to be honest.

I agree in part. Change.org is a better way but I disagree on the numbers. 

Been generous with the crowd figures for the Championship and National 1 clubs, if everyone signed you only will have approx 30k signatures because, and I sound like a broken record here, the issues only affect a small number of clubs and no one is putting forward a convincing argument why anyone outside of this group of clubs should sign. 

Prem 2, and any of its possible ramifications, is a micro not macro issue, as highlighted in mine and others previous posts. A fact the RFU will know well.

Impressive numbers of 80k plus, and a seemingly widespread strength of feeling on the tackle height issue, yet still no nothing tangible brought about by all those signatures to prevent the tackle law changing. Again, a telling sign as to the authority administered by the RFU. And remember, in contrast to the Prem 2 matter, this was a conversation actually affecting all but the 20-odd clubs at Level 1 & 2 nationwide, and thus a macro 'in your thousands of rugby clubs' matter.