Method looks like madness

Hostile critics of Rupert Murdoch's proposed arrangements with rugby league - they have all been more or less hostile, with the exception of Eddie Butler - have tended to confuse two separate objections.

One is that Murdoch is involved at all. Owing to the money on offer, players of rugby union, particularly in Australasia, will switch to league, so imperilling the prospects of Australia and New Zealand in the World Cup. That, at any rate, is the fear, coupled with consequential fears about rugby union in the British Isles.

The other objection is different. It is that Murdoch is destroying the whole ethos of rugby league in England by insisting on the merger of clubs.

It is not clear (to me, at any rate) whether Murdoch's television interests insisted on these amalgamations as a condition precedent to the formation of his rugby league circus, or whether the league chairmen decided off their own bat that this was the best way forward.

In either case, these artificial clubs will, I predict, destroy the show even before it has got on the road. We have all heard about the antipathy between Featherstone and Castleford, and Warrington and Widnes (who are not, according to the Widnes chairman, Jim Mills, going to merge after all).

The mystery is why Murdoch's apparatchiks - for the great man himself has not, so far as is known, shown the slightest interest in any variety of rugby - or, alternatively, the league chairmen, should have wanted these artificial clubs at all. For the global project they have in mind, the top five clubs in the championship as they were before yesterday's games are surely ideal: Wigan, Leeds, Warrington, St Helens, and Halifax. They have the additional advantage of dividing between three clubs from Lancashire and two from Yorkshire. The inclusion of a bogus London club is idiotic. No one wants it.

From this you may gather that I am enthusiastic about Murdoch's idea but opposed to its proposed method of implementation. Indeed, for years I have advocated a similar competition in rugby union. It would include clubs not only from England, Scotland and Wales but from Ireland and France as well.

The critics will cry: no time, no room! But, for a start, I would abolish the divisional and the county championships.

The latter, true, is not taken very seriously any longer. It is there largely as an excuse for the inhabitants of Cornwall or Yorkshire to enjoy a day in London. The former is a nuisance which takes up valuable time. Here again, no one wants it.

When a country next tour England they should play not the divisions, but Leicester, Bath, Wasps and Sale, who have the advantage of representing the Midlands, the South-West, London and the North.

The balance might of course turn out to be less even as between regions in a future Courage League table. But the guide should be the strength of the clubs, not where they have their homes. Likewise with my proposed European Championship.

Finally, I do not want to anticipate the names in the final Welsh party for South Africa, who will be announced today. I will, however, say this: a couple of weeks ago 32 names were published. Instead of giving this intervening period over to training sessions and the usual Welsh intrigue, would it not have been preferable to hold one or even two trial matches?

These occasions have, I know, gone out of fashion with the development of the squad system. In part, this has been a change for the better. It was absurd when England managed to cram in no fewer than three trials between the University match in early December and the first Saturday in January.

Today England are the last Five Nations country to be in need of a trial. Wales are in no such happy condition. Numerous positions are in genuine doubt.

There was, it seems, a trial of sorts yesterday, held behind closed gates. This is different from a public event at a major ground. But then, trials are, mistakenly, a thing of the past, like the glamour attaching to the Barbarians' Easter fixtures with Cardiff and Swansea - and, it may be before too long, the Lions tours. Instead everything will be concentrated on the World Cup, and, I hope, a European or even a World Club Championship.