By Stockers
May 2 2003

Rich has noted in his Quins match preview that teams in various parts of the ZP are competing for various things, the Champions title, automatic or wildcard Heineken entry or avoidance of relegation but isn't that just the point There is still COMPETITION! Every match until season's end actually matters.

Rather than Gloucester just walking away with the Premiership, other clubs near the top of the ZP know they can have a tilt at the title by finishing in the top three. So the top 4 or 5 clubs have a major incentive to keep competing, rather than just accepting that they are runners up.

The next rank down, from 4th to say 7th can focus on automatic entry for Europe without having to play in the rather bizarre wild card but that little diversion in itself gives mid table clubs a focus at the end of the season and a reason to stay competitive and keep trying.

And down in the basement, with the spectre of relegation looming out of the mists like a ghost ship crewed by receivers, bank managers and players agents, we are seeing some of the biggest crowds ever for ZP matches. Bristol have reportedly sold 18,000 tickets for the relegation clash against Bath at Ashton Gate at the weekend. London Irish had a bumper crowd when they played Quins recently at Reading. Imagine whether the crowd would have even outnumbered the ground stewards if there had been no relegation from the ZP!

So my case is that at each and every level of the ZP there is still a need for competition, for clubs (except possibly now Gloucester) to field teams which are as strong as possible and for spectators to turn up in large numbers to encourage their teams to keep up the momentum until the final whistle blows on the last game of the league fixture list and beyond into the various play offs.

I can hear the cries of Rubbish! Player Burn Out! Costs me a packet to see all these games etc and I'm not saying that is wrong but by maintaining the need for clubs to be competitive until the very end of the season are we not, as ticket buying stakeholders in the game, getting much better value for money than we would if the ZP had already been won by Gloucester, there was no need for wildcard playoffs to decide HC qualifying and the league was ring fenced with no relegation as some of the more worried club directors have suggested?

Elsewhere, the structure of the season and the relationships between clubs and country and the influence of the Powergen and Parker Pen Cups on final "arrangements" do, I readily accept, need overhaul but is your excitement as a club supporter not at a higher level under the current Zurich Premiership?


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