M.E. The bloke who relegated Quins to ND1. Nothing to read here!

That's a silly response, Tarquin. Evans knows what he's talking about. He also admitted the mistakes he made with Quins and didn't hide from it.

Seems a bit odd describing him thus

"Former Saracens director of rugby Mark Evans"

Evans is right. Until there’s a greater sense of reality as to what can be afforded there is no way that the vast majority of clubs will be sustainable. Club Rugby has higher attendances than it used to, that’s for sure but nowhere near enough on a regular basis to sustain the costs incurred by most clubs.

Not just us,but many of the Clubs

Given player wages are the bulk of the outgoings, there are only two ways of cutting costs, reduce the number of players or pay each player less.
While you are competing with the French, the amount you have to pay to recruit or retain players is going to be dictated by the rates they can offer, and currently their TV has more money for rugby so wages are not coming down.

So the only way to reduce cost is to reduce the size of the squad.
The academy costs are meant to be covered by funding from the RFU - whether clubs spend more or less is up to them.
I suspect some underspend while other may overspend in the hope of developing talents such as  Marcus Smith.

Premiership sides are permitted to register more players than Championship sides because Premiership clubs play though the International window and hence need cover.

So perhaps you could drop the AWC, rearrange the fixtures so there is no play in the International weeks, reduce the maximum number of registered players to 40 per club. But would the savings on wages outweigh the loss of gate, wet sales, sponsorship and TV money? It is probably the latter that is the kicker.

ME oft propounded the theory that we will end up with a European wide Premiership containing the richest and most succesful Clubs, with a junior level of National Leagues.