English rugby a 'million miles' away from fixing Championship crisis - Paul Turner

Paul Turner, the former Wales outside half, has been working minor miracles in the English Championship with a part-time squad at Ampthill that receives funding from the Rugby Football Union which is less than the top England rugby players will each pocket under a new eight-year deal with the Premiership clubs.

The new hybrid contracts are expected to earn 25 England players £160,000 from the RFU to top up their club wages while the 12 Championship clubs – the second tier of English rugby – will each receive just £133,000 this season- their lowest sum.

Under the next Professional Game Partnership (PGP) deal worth £264m, the RFU will pay the 10 Gallagher Premiership clubs £33m per season for the first four-year cycle, with a profit share dictating the funding for the second four-year cycle leaving the Championship clubs to fend for themselves.

To gain promotion to the Premiership a Championship club must meet the minimum standard criteria which has proved a massive stumbling block and helped frame the top flight as a closed shop. Going forward, the two-legged play-off between the bottom-placed Premiership side and the winner of the Championship includes a significant change to the minimum standards to allow the Championship outfit three seasons to increase their capacity from at least 5,000 to 10,001.

However, given the massive disparity in central funding, breaking into the Premiership remains a daunting challenge for clubs such as Ealing Trailfinders, Doncaster and Coventry who want to prove the sceptics wrong. Turner acknowledges the change to the minimum standards but the head coach said: “Unless we sort those problems out there is never going to be a joined up Premiership and Championship.

Paul Turner (Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)

“We have got the drawbridge lowered to allow a play-off for promotion but the rest of it is a million miles away unless the funding is improved to an extent that it is a fair game. You have three divisions in France that have funding and it is frustrating here in England and the problems go back many years.

“It doesn’t seem as if much has changed although they have lowered the drawbridge with the promotion/relegation chat but whoever is bottom of the Premiership plays the top of the Championship in a play off and it will be a huge task because you are talking about a big difference in budget. The money we get includes a percentage that has to be spent on medical matters and so we don’t really get anything ( from central funding) because you are fined if you don’t adhere to the medical rules -that’s what I have been told.

“This is my 14th season with Ampthill and in that time the Premiership and Championship have never been aligned like the Top 14 and Pro D2 in France. When we started we were in Midlands One and got those promotions and this is our fifth season in the Championship. The funding was pretty good in that first year but since then it has been cut and there are huge problems. I saw a squad picture of one of the Premiership clubs for this season and counted 60 odd players and I can’t just believe it and I thought they were cutting squads!”

A new Tier 2 board has been created under the new RFU deal to support the future of the Championship, designed to drive plans for a revamped league in 2025-26, with three representatives from the RFU and three from the league itself, plus an independent chair to be recruited. While that sounds like a forward step, unless the funding model is radically changed the Championship will continue to financially limp along.

Turner added: “I have a great director of rugby (Mark Lavery) and we set out goals for the season and it’s about finding your level but it can be tough. We go to Doncaster on Saturday and we beat them twice last season and they have taken my captain and we now we face them with a different side. They have some good intent as a club and lots of ambition and their budget will be bigger than ours. We are one of five or six in the Championship who are semi-pro and have punched above our weight in the last four seasons.

“We are a new squad and there has been huge change having lost three players that I really wanted to keep with my captain, a centre and full-back but it was difficult because we are still part-time and these boys wanted to go full-time. I have had to go out and try and recruit a new squad of 30 players which is similar in size to last season.”

Mouritz Botha, (L) the Ampthill assistant coach talks with head coach Paul Turner during the Greene King IPA Championship match between Ampthill and Cornish Pirates at Dillingham Park on March 14, 2020 in Ampthill, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Turner is continuing his role as a consultant with the Dragons in Wales who compete in the URC and has been helping the club deal with their own problems. He added: “Ironically, in the next year the funding is going to be equal in Wales but you have the two Scottish sides, the Irish provinces, the Italian sides who have improved and the Super rugby clubs from South Africa making it a tough league."

So what keeps Turner so enthusiastic about the sport despite all of the frustrations? "I went to Sale, joining in 1992/93 as player/coach and had over 10 years including Newport and Bedford and I still get that nervous feeling on match day. I love the game and it’s been my life. Now, I have Charlie Bracken at Ampthill and I speak to his Dad (ex-England scrum-half Kyran) regularly at the games and while there are frustrations, the involvement is something I want to do until the end.”