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Worcester Warriors' buyers handed takeover ultimatum

By PA
(Photo by PA)

Worcester Warriors’ buyers must complete a takeover of the club by May 2, according to a report issued by administrators Begbies Traynor.

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The deadline was activated when Atlas, headed by Jim O’Toole and James Sandford, was chosen on February 1 as the new owners over a rival bid from former director of rugby Steve Diamond.

Worcester were placed into administration in September for unpaid debts, with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport their biggest creditor having loaned the club £14million.

As a result they were relegated from the Gallagher Premiership, but rather than compete in the Championship next season – due to a dispute over terms with the Rugby Football Union – Atlas announced its plan to merge with semi-professional fourth-tier club Stourbridge.

If Atlas is unable to make the deadline of next Tuesday then Begbies Traynor must find a new party to purchase the club’s assets, which includes Sixways Stadium.

In the 27-page progress report published by the administrators, it is revealed that Atlas would not be able to sell Sixways within five years of purchase if its takeover does proceed.

If the sale fails to go ahead, Atlas will lose a £500,000 non-refundable deposit that was paid on February 1 as an exclusivity fee.

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Atlas’ plan to rename Worcester Warriors as Sixways Rugby was abandoned due to opposition from fans.

The RFU announced in February that it was blocking Worcester’s entry into the Championship on account of Atlas’ failure to prove it met its criteria for inclusion, which includes a fit and proper persons test.

“The RFU has been clear that its priority was to enable Worcester Warriors to play in the Championship and Worcester Warriors Women in the Premier 15s in a sustainable way,” a statement read.

“The information required has been asked for repeatedly and deadlines were extended to provide the best possible chance for this to happen.

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“Our priority is to ensure the best interests of rugby and the rugby community are preserved.”

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J
JW 46 minutes ago
How law changes are speeding up the game - but the scrum lags behind

Very good, now we are getting somewhere (though you still didn't answer the question but as you're a South African I think we can all assume what the answer would be if you did lol)! Now let me ask you another question, and once you've answered that to yourself, you can ask yourself a followup question, to witch I'm intrigued to know the answer.


Well maybe more than a couple of questions, just to be clear. What exactly did this penalty stop you from doing the the first time that you want to try again? What was this offence that stopped you doing it? Then ask yourself how often would this occur in the game. Now, thinking about the regularity of it and compare it to how it was/would be used throughout the rest of the game (in cases other than the example you gave/didn't give for some unknown reason).


What sort of balance did you find?


Now, we don't want to complicate things further by bringing into the discussion points Bull raised like 'entirety' or 'replaced with a ruck', so instead I'll agree that if we use this article as a trigger to expanding our opinions/thoughts, why not allow a scrum to be reset if that is what they(you) want? Stopping the clock for it greatly removes the need to stop 5 minutes of scrum feeds happening. Fixing the law interpretations (not incorrectly rewarding the dominant team) and reducing the amount of offences that result in a penalty would greatly reduce the amount of repeat scrums in the first place. And now that refs a card happy, when a penalty offence is committed it's going to be far more likely it results in the loss of a player, then the loss of scrums completely and instead having a 15 on 13 advantage for the scrum dominant team to then run their opposition ragged. So why not take the scrum again (maybe you've already asked yourself that question by now)?


It will kind be like a Power Play in Hockey. Your outlook here is kind of going to depend on your understanding of what removing repeat scrums was put in place for, but I'm happy the need for it is gone in a new world order. As I've said on every discussion on this topic, scrums are great, it is just what they result in that hasn't been. Remove the real problem and scrum all you like. The All Blacks will love zapping that energy out of teams.

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