Quin Calls for End to Relegation Madness

Harlequins' chief executive Mark Evans yesterday added fresh fuel to the debate over automatic relegation from the Zurich Premiership, claiming it would be "madness" and "detrimental to the game" if an established club such as Newcastle or Bath lost their elite status at the end of the season.

With Premier Rugby confirming next season's competition will not be expanded from the existing 12 teams and the National League One leaders Rotherham adamant that they now fulfil the necessary off-field criteria, the team finishing in bottom place cannot rely on being reprieved, as Leeds were last season, and Evans fears the club involved could suffer financial meltdown.

"At the moment I think someone will go down and someone will come up but the whole thing is madness," said Evans, still managing to combine his desk job at Quins with coaching duties. "If we continue to have open access to the Premiership with automatic promotion and relegation every year, it will be to the significant detriment of the game.

"I've never been against expansion of the league when economic realities allow but only a minority of the Premiership sides are in profit. We don't have enough money within the game to have 12 clubs financially viable, let alone 14 or 16, and in the current economic climate you cannot expect the massive financial growth in the Premiership in the last three to four years to continue.

"Nobody's jacked it in since Richmond folded but I don't think we should be complacent. We were in trouble last year and played our way out of it but had we been relegated half the non-playing staff would have lost their jobs and most of the players would have gone too."

Evans said that investment in grounds was essential to the long-term growth of the club game and was horrified at the increasing possibility of Newcastle and their chairman David Thompson suffering relegation, having ploughed £12m into redeveloping their Kingston Park headquarters.

"How many multi-millionaire benefactors do people think there are in the north-east? In the same way you can't whistle down a mine for an English fast bowler these days, people have to realise there's not an inexhaustible supply of guys with significant resources and a huge enthusiasm for the game.

"All we're doing at the moment is throwing away millions of pounds of investment every year. This year it might be Newcastle or Bath. Next year it might be Harlequins or Wasps or Saracens. It's no coincidence this season's Premiership has been so competitive; it's because there was no relegation last year. I agree with Rob Andrew's view that the whole idea of a seamless game is a nonsense."

In Rotherham there is, predictably, rather less sympathy for Andrew, Newcastle's director of rugby. The Yorkshire side's chief executive Jim Kilfoyle remains insistent his club will not be denied as they were last time around.

"My sympathy for Newcastle would be on a par with Rob Andrew's sympathy for Rotherham last season," said Kilfoyle. "Rob may be fearing the trap door and the impact upon his club but that's his job. We've become very hard-headed."

Kilfoyle said the club, who now play their home games at Rotherham United's Millmoor ground, were looking forward with confidence to another visit from the Rugby Football Union's chief executive Francis Baron within the next fortnight and said Rotherham had no reason to suspect that they would not be promoted this time, assuming they keep at bay their nearest rivals Worcester.

Paul Honiss of New Zealand will referee England's opening game in the Six Nations against France. Gloucester have invited the Wasps prop Darren Molloy to join them on loan to fill in for Trevor Woodman.