The club are two wins away from winning the Championship promotion play-offs, but their stadium lacks the necessary facilities to host top-flight rugby. Having won all five of their games so far in the Pool B of the Championship play-offs, the Pirates have been awarded a home tie against London Welsh in the semi-finals.
Victory over the Exiles on 1 May will see the Cornish club battle for the Championship title, however their prize for victory will only be silverware, with promotion ruled out.
The Cornish Pirates have welcomed plans for promotion and relegation between the Premiership and Championship to return for season The RFU plans have provoked a mixed response with some quarters arguing that the time frames and criteria that will need to be met are wholly unrealistic with one promotion spot up for grabs next season. We were absolutely adamant that there should be some form of promotion and relegation and if there had been complete ring-fencing, with the Premiership becoming a franchise, then we would have been up in arms about it, as would of all the Championships clubs — everyone below the Premiership in fact.
Is what we have seen a compromise? Well, I have always advocated that because of the financial ring-fencing that there still is, because of the gap in funding which is unbelievable.
The club relegated from the Premiership has always been able to receive a parachute payment and payment from its Premiership share, meaning there was never a level playing field for a Championship club to play against a relegated Premiership side.
They had far more resources, that would always be the case, and once the play-offs had been stopped, something we were against, it was always inevitable that the relegated club would be promoted the next season. My own view and that of the club was that it has always been better for the bottom Premiership club to play the top club in the Championship over a play-off and decide who was promoted and relegated because you would have a much better chance of winning, opposed to competing with their resources throughout the season.
The big question that Cornish rugby supporters will be asking next is just how much it will cost and what needs to be done for the Pirates to finally reach the promised land of Premiership Rugby. Durkin was coy about talking figures because at this moment in time, it would be hard to quantify exactly what is needed and how much cost will be involved. It is understood, however, that these will comprise of clubs being able to demonstrate financial longevity and a commitment to developing home grown talent.
Another thing that has been thrown into the mix is the minimum standards. We know all about those in terms of seating and grounds, but there are also some more stringent parts to it that clubs could get in place. A lot of these rules were drawn up to discourage teams like Worcester, Exeter or London Welsh from getting promoted. They wanted, more or less, to ring-fence it by stealth. He also argues passionately that relegation breeds negative rugby, stunts the development of young English players and comes at a huge cost.
We're not as advanced as football where they have huge parachute payments for several years. In rugby you get only one year. If Wasps had lost their last game of the season, they'd probably have disappeared.
As it happens, Newcastle have found a wealthy backer but, if [the previous owner] Dave Thompson had still been there on his own, I think that would have been the end of Newcastle.
You go out there not to win but to make sure you don't lose. We'd get much more exciting rugby and better development of young players. While it's hanging over you, the threat of relegation is very painful, particularly, if under the existing system, the best Championship team don't necessarily get promoted.
Often it is an underdog team with no pressure on them. The people who drew up the format don't seem to realise that. This article is more than 9 years old.
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