Stuart Lancaster Racing 92 exit rumours wide of the mark

You can't get past your obsession with how all wonderful all kiwi coaches are .....it's almost as if you're Welsh ......

Is Ben Herring still their coach? I was hoping he would return to NZ with Fosters addition to the team but a recent article seemed to suggest he was still just an assistant.

Appreciate the player insights for the up and commers. Been a bit dreary watching Champions Cup rugby so can't wait for it to start.

The biggest issue is the fact he was that being the skipper shouldn't have had anything to do with it. Big deal if your chosen skipper is injury for large majorities and you have to use pro's like Whitelock (who would otherwise have been skipper anyway if Razor got the job), and up and comers like Barret and Ardie, is no reason to jettison Cane.

The problem was that the All Black coach didn't even realise this fact, and continually included Cane, because he was skipper, as soon as he was back from injruy. When he should have helped develop some more 7s and only playing Cane with some came time under his belt. He wasn't Riche McCaw after all, though he did play pretty well in that Irish series after coming straight back in. Hell everyone was getting critized by everyone for the fact Foster SUBBED him after 60. It was a ridiculous period as Yeow mentioned.

Selections wise he was just as stubborn and you could have wasted the fact he did give Lomax, EDG, Samisoni, Vaa'i their debuts early. They might not have been used properly until Ryan got his hands on them and injury forced his hand into selecting them for consecutive games, but I don't think you're on topic.

As a side argument, nothing bad with the message in your comment, just a bit rose tinted for me in an article with Fozzie trying to defend (credit) himself for bring these guys through.

This is probably making a point you already understand once it clicks. It's the concept of this article, Wales has four teams, so should have some representation if the EPCR is about the game rather than an Elite super league to allow the rich to get richer. There is of course a midground here were people don't need to get carried away.

But yes, if they keep getting worse it would get harder for them to get places.

No, it wouldn't. It gets harder by simple mathmatics, not just for SA, but for all in URC compared to England in your model. SA have the same league standings in previous years. I'm just picking out SA as an example as they've probably had the biggest share involvement so far, you're getting too fixated on recent results dictating the success of your idea. You need to envision what else might happen.

Gloucester are a great example of your idea going a bit too far in it's randomness. They are coming up but they are not ready for Champions Cup. With your model they would have been excluded for another up and coming team, for example Benneton. So if you like going by recent examples, one lost to a Top 14 new commer, the other beat one of Premierships best sides. The right team has made it into the Champions Cup.