English and French Euro rebels look increasingly isolated

It took a bit of time, but the Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Italians have come out fighting in a bid to cut renegade English and French clubs off at the pass.

The English and French clubs still say they have no interest in resuming negotiations with ERC over a new tournament for the Heineken and Amlin Challenge cup competitions, but their breakaway plans are now in serious jeopardy.

Yesterday, the IRFU clarified it will not be participating in future tournaments which do not have the full approval of the IRB.

The Welsh, Scottish and Italians quickly followed suit on top of the French Rugby Federation’s (FFR) pledge it would not support an Anglo-French tournament. The RFU, under pressure from the clubs and their current governing body partners, are being forced to row in with their clubs.

However, having signed up to the European agreement they are much more likely to be guided by the IRB and fellow unions, even if it would create major problems with their clubs.

Talks are not planned to resume until October 23, and ERC has appointed a mediator, Canadian lawyer Graeme Mew, in an attempt to bring all sides together. But Premiership Rugby and LNR are still promising to forge ahead with their plans, having also extended an invitation to Celtic and Italian teams to join them. Clearly, following the raft of public statements yesterday, they will be left without support.

That leaves us in a situation where, in the world of international rugby, they might find that club games played between two countries might not be as attractive to the promised television benefactors as first believed.

The French and English unions will provide alternative representatives from the lower divisions to fill the void.

The cash-rich but often hard-pressed English clubs in particular should perhaps be reminded of when they last attempted to derail the tournament in 1999.

The protest didn’t last long and it’s difficult to see now how a group of clubs could possibly expect to end one of the greatest rugby competitions the world has ever known.

Many believe this issue would never have arisen were it not for a flagrant overspend and the subsequent financial woes in virtually all of England’s Premiership clubs over the last few years. That and a hint of jealousy that five of the last Heineken Cup titles have been won by Irish teams or, more importantly, non-English teams.