Pirates hopes new promotion rules can improve Champ

Cornish Pirates chief executive Sally Pettipher said she hopes changes to promotion and relegation to the Prem will lead to greater exposure for Champ sides.

Under the plans, sides wanting to win a place in the top flight would have to apply to join the Prem rather than being promoted purely on sporting merit.

Clubs would have to fulfil criteria looking at infrastructure, finances, investment potential and how their location could help expand the game.

Pirates are one of 14 sides in the second tier, which could be expanded to include ambitious clubs who would not have to come up through the current league pyramid.

"I think what's clear to me is that the status quo is not acceptable to the Premiership," Pettipher told BBC Sport.

"We have had professional rugby in this country for several decades now, and a lot of the Championship owners that came with that professionalism, and Pirates among them, are getting to the point where we have to have a rebirth and a new era looking forward, and unfortunately that era is more expensive.

"It is being forced into becoming a new normal and it is a bit of a reality that that new normal is more expensive.

"On the other hand, if the quality of rugby in our league has a light shone on it, and even this debate, as painful as it is, shines a light on how important the Championship is as a proving ground in this country.

"If it shines a bigger light on us to show other people what a fantastic prospect we are for coming into the game, I suppose in some way I'm pleased."

The new rules could make it harder for current Champ clubs to gain promotion.

The last side that was not a Premiership Rugby shareholder to go up to the top tier was London Welsh when they won the Championship title in 2014.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic no Premiership side has come down to the second tier - Saracens won the Championship in 2021 after being relegated due to financial rule breaches and are the last side to gain promotion from the division.

No side has had the chance of promotion since as the title winners in that time - Ealing and Jersey Reds - have not had the infrastructure to earn promotion.

The top flight currently has 10 teams after London Irish, Wasps and Worcester all went bust in the 2022-23 season.

Worcester have been resurrected this season, and were put straight back in the Champ rather than having to work their way up the leagues - they are currently third in the division, 25 points off leaders Ealing, who has won all 19 of their matches.

Pettipher said she does have a concern about sides being promoted to the top tier if they have not shown enough sporting merit in the Champ.

"This is a discussion that we had with the RFU and the Premiership quite recently, and as a Championship, we feel that it would devalue the Championship and it would devalue the Premiership, it would devalue rugby, if anything below the top two were promoted.

"It would just be a farce if somebody came in and they were promoted from sixth because they were the only one that met the standard.

"So there are some finer points that if pushed to a sort of logical conclusion become illogical."