Refinanced, revamped club should resist the easy choice of impatiently ploughing in to URC and instead make their way back to English top flight via Champ Rugby

The power of the brand has been much in evidence in professional club rugby of late — rather odd as this is an era in which big brands such as Worcester Warriors and London Irish stopped trading and stopped playing, and disappeared off the face of rugby’s earth with no investment and, it seemed, no future.

Meanwhile, other clubs, lesser known in the pro era, notably Coventry, Ealing Trailfinders and Doncaster Knights, have in recent seasons popped up expressing ambitions to play in the Gallagher Prem.

But the tarnished brands are stirring again. London Irish, making their way back from insolvency, have a massive choice to make that could either project them into the upper reaches of the club game or kill them again. We examine their choices herein.

Alan Ferrie and Aristot Benz-Salomon of Coventry tackle Lloyd Williams of Worcester during the Champ Rugby match.

Worcester are back at Sixways and going well in Champ Rugby this season

And Worcester had a brand, a big name and a proven track record of drawing big crowds for big games before they folded in 2022. They also had a stroke of fortune in their time of desperation. The businessman, Chris Holland, part of a group wanting to resuscitate the stricken Wasps (another huge brand) bought the Worcester stadium in case Wasps needed a place to play should their plans come to fruition.

This effectively gave Worcester their home back as they bounced back rapidly, and they are playing strongly this season in the second-tier Champ Rugby, a wonderful sight for their fans; and their set of new players are as committed as the old bunch. It is the old brands which can chime more with followers than emerging projects, however good.

Next steps? It is said that permission has been granted for the Prem to rise from ten to 12 clubs, a blindingly obvious move which is overdue. Allowing promotion to Champ clubs would have the effect of dispelling the growing suspicions that a change the hidebound old guard have mooted — making the Prem a franchise league — is simply the latest attempt to find a way to pickle themselves in vinegar in the Prem for all time.

But back to brands and to London Irish. As my colleague Alex Lowe wrote during the week, a revamped, refinanced London Irish are back on the scene, supported by some heavy backers and confident that they can re-emerge.

My suspicion is that their demise two years ago was down more to bad luck and bad timing than to anything else but they had always been a major player in the Premiership. In some seasons they were sternly competitive, and it is a sporting tragedy that they did not thrive in the lovely Gtech Community Stadium at Brentford, where they played from the 2020-21 season.

A wide shot of a rugby match between London Irish and Northampton Saints, with players on the field and spectators in the stadium stands, under a cloudy sky.

London Irish moved to Brentford Football Club’s Gtech Community Stadium after leaving their home for many years at the Madejski Stadium in Reading

MIKE HEWITT/GETTY

However, they are back, and nosing around. They have a choice. They can either go bull-headed and regain their place in the Prem, which would require them to spend at least one season going for promotion in the Champ; or they can accept the entreaties they have received to join the URC, a tournament that is a leviathan in terms of distance and global spread, but Lilliputian in terms of public interest.

One of the drawbacks of the URC is that unless there is a local derby involved, because of the travel, the matches never draw away fans, which removes a great deal of the atmosphere — and it is also true that, occasionally, some of the clubs do not draw many home fans either. The rank stupidity of having South African teams (or, rather, South African second teams) in previously European competitions — the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup — as well as the URC has held them all back grievously.

There are directors of rugby who despair of the vast trips involved just when they are finding their rhythm in the season and who believe there is no way the competitions can last long in the present formats. Back at home in a revitalised Currie Cup, say, the South African provinces are huge brands. Here in the URC, they are pipsqueak.

It is massive in its concept, but not in the playing. It is extremely rare that South African teams deign to field all (or even some) of their Springboks. Let us say that they get a good rest more than they get an outing.

It is natural that the URC is chasing London Irish because that would give it a representative in London. The bonus for London Irish would be that they would not need to spend time chasing promotion; the URC would take them in a shot, embrace them like brothers, sight unseen, any hour of the day.

London Irish, as I say, have been told that they would have to fight their way up through the Champ rather than ploughing straight in to the Prem for old time’s sake. But beware. Impatience could be their sworn enemy.

Blair Cowan of London Irish with the ball during an Aviva Premiership rugby match.

London Irish have a chance to rekindle their glory days in the Premiership, when Cowan was a regular fixture in the team

Strategically, they would be far better off investing in the strong team they say they can afford, playing in the Champ and, when ready, going for promotion — with all their marketing and coaches and squad in place, making the jump to the Prem not quite as hurtlingly scary as normal. They would also then tie in with their warm and highly successful amateur section, which has soldiered on regardless in southwest London. They cannot afford to get it wrong again.

So is the London Irish choice clear? Absolutely. They should set themselves up to make a grand comeback in the region where they have always played, often successfully. They have earmarked the football grounds of Millwall and AFC Wimbledon for home games. In London, and especially when under the inspired leadership of the New Zealand-born Scot Blair Cowan, they were as fervent a club as any I have visited. They also had a large membership and support among non-Irish ranks.

So, again, the choice. Returning to their old stamping ground, refreshed and reinvigorated and re-financed. Or taking part in a pie-in-the-sky monster which has yet to scare anyone on the field. The Irish used to parade a magnificent Irish wolfhound before games. He should come barking back, in England, where they belong.

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Don’t get sucked into URC void, London Irish. Earn your place back in Prem