After all the 'will they, won't they' that went on when Welsh won the Championship I'm starting to wonder whether or not the Premiership wanted them in at all.

No doubt if they manage to stay up they'll find a way to implement the suspended deduction as well.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/21674783

After all the 'will they, won't they' that went on when Welsh won the Championship I'm starting to wonder whether or not the Premiership wanted them in at all.

No doubt if they manage to stay up they'll find a way to implement the suspended deduction as well.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/21674783

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... f-comments

[iNow, rugby is not to everybody's taste. It's dull, plodding and the laws are unfathomable, say the cynics, who contrast it unfavourably with the flowing, relatively straightforward game of football. And in some ways those critics are right. But they are missing the point that rugby is sport at its purest because, in reality, all sport is boring. It's a tribal rite, not an aesthetic exercise, and no sport does tribalism better than rugby.[/i

[iif you treat it purely as an aesthetic form, rugby is unwatchable. The ball disappears under a heap of bodies for long periods; the scrums are endlessly set and reset as referees struggle to impose discipline; and no one really understands the rules, which makes the giving of penalties a lottery. A game lasts 80 minutes, and if 5% of that is made up of running rugby you're doing well. The rest will be scrums, mauls, punch-ups and a small man squatting over the ball for minutes on end as he lines up a kick at goal which has resulted from some alleged offence no one can understand in the first place.[/i

Still far too complimentary in my view.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... f-comments

[iNow, rugby is not to everybody's taste. It's dull, plodding and the laws are unfathomable, say the cynics, who contrast it unfavourably with the flowing, relatively straightforward game of football. And in some ways those critics are right. But they are missing the point that rugby is sport at its purest because, in reality, all sport is boring. It's a tribal rite, not an aesthetic exercise, and no sport does tribalism better than rugby.[/i

[iif you treat it purely as an aesthetic form, rugby is unwatchable. The ball disappears under a heap of bodies for long periods; the scrums are endlessly set and reset as referees struggle to impose discipline; and no one really understands the rules, which makes the giving of penalties a lottery. A game lasts 80 minutes, and if 5% of that is made up of running rugby you're doing well. The rest will be scrums, mauls, punch-ups and a small man squatting over the ball for minutes on end as he lines up a kick at goal which has resulted from some alleged offence no one can understand in the first place.[/i

Still far too complimentary in my view.