The next thing I want most is for a healthy, competitive league, a league in which the best teams are feared throughout Europe, and the gameplay is something to really tune in for, not to endure.
That's it really. That would be my mission for English rugby.
As such, I am apprehensive and vexed by PRL's decision to abandon negotiations over a new Heineken Cup, instead setting up a new competition with the French that is "open to teams from other countries". We currently have no more details than that, so I'm not going to get carried away in my criticisms. Right now though, it feels a very risky step.
The Heineken Cup and the Amlin Cup have been great things for European rugby as a whole. It has generated money, it has raised standards and it has been a massive hit with the fans. I've been lucky enough to go to two Heineken Cup finals. The amounts of fans from everywhere, come to enjoy the day out, is huge. What is also huge is the intensity of the games. It is the closest thing to international rugby out there - on its days, its equal. English clubs should be in a tournament of this level, and the English national team benefits from its existence.
What are Mark McCafferty and co proposing to replace it with? The French alone seem to me insufficient to create a top quality competition. They were notorious for their tendency to treat the Heineken Cup as a second class competition, saving their best for the Top 14. I can understand the complaints about the Irish doing the opposite to great effect, but it was far better for the Heineken Cup than the attitude of Castres, to pick one repeat offender. The Heineken Cup as it was might have had the odd total non-hacker who did not pack the gear to serve in our beloved cup (here's looking at you, Aironi/Zebre) but between the variety of opposition, the whole-hearted commitment of most teams and the quality at the sharp end it was still a top quality tournament.
Still, what it might lack in quality, it will - to the English clubs at least - compensate for in terms of a big bag of money. Between the BT deal, and a change to the share of the spoils, the financial rewards are considerable. The numbers are foggy - Jeff Probyn goes over them here - but we appear to be talking about an extra £2m a club. When you see how little largesse PRL intended to give to the Pro 12 - a scant £1m extra compared to the £14m earmarked for both the Premiership and the Top 14 - it is no wonder negotiations have collapsed.
One can only take from those figures that negotiations were intended to fail. That the English and French clubs felt their lion's share of the viewing numbers and abilities to get good TV deals entitled them to help stop funding European rugby. That they wanted to move away from a model controlled by the six unions to something under their control. In the process, they are risking much on the Pro 12 countries falling into line and on the disparity of finance not weakening the fragile domestic games of these countries. Without strong domestic games, their long term viability as elite rugby nations comes into question.
Some will see this as fair. The law of the jungle taking over. The same law says that a predator that grows too big for its habitat to support will fail. How is the England team meant to bring itself up to the levels of New Zealand and South Africa if its Six Nation opposition are of poor quality? What glory is there in conquering Europe, when it is simply us and France? The tallest midget is still a very short man. Is the English rugby market worth as much without the Heineken Cup? This is all very worst case, "Union shrinks to League-esque levels of interest" style scenarios, but they are not beyond imagination, and English and European rugby alike will be damaged if they becoe even partially true.
To me, rugbywise, a strong Europe is the best vehicle for a strong England. A strong Europe provides us with the competition we need, both as a national team, and as clubs. That's what I want for England. Teams that will challenge us. A strong Europe can generate more interest in Italy, with its relatively unexploited TV market. McCafferty and his friends thought the Heineken Cup wasn't generating the money it should. I can agree. It was a fantastic tournament, more varied and tense than the Super XV for my money, and as global interest in rugby rises it was a tournament where tv rights could have been sold abroad. I don't see the same interest in an Anglo-French tournament.
And now, there is no Heineken Cup to sell. Together, we and the French have strangled the goose that lies the golden egg, and put our own bird in place. How this ends, no one can say, because we don't know what the bird looks like.
This is a very hard state of affairs to be optimistic about.
p.s. Some might raise the issue of qualification. I struggle to believe that has been the real issue at any point.
That the Pro 12 clubs have been free to pick HEC games to target without fear of missing qualification targets in the league is an issue. But it is not a very major one; the Irish powerhouses have been able to cruise cheerfully to both play-off berths and European knockout rugby fairly regularly as it stands and it is doubtful that would have changed much. Besides, most media reports indicate the Pro 12 were willing to cave in on this. Issue? Clearly not the major one.
In fact, the main issue with the HEC being a fair competition, if you ask me, is the French being able to spend so much more. No mention of an European wide salary cap though - and by leaving ERC, the English clubs probably left behind their ability to get such a thing.
