6. Make Europe great again
The fact teams in the Prem can be so bad and still qualify for the Champions Cup feels silly. Why not make the Champions Cup more elite, with fewer, better teams and do the same for the Challenge Cup. Then, for the real stragglers, no European competition at all. The incentive of European rugby and the money it brings would surely tell.
Would it work? In an ideal world, absolutely. It is hardly an original observation that having eight out of 10 teams qualify for the “Champions” Cup is too many. As things stand, could anyone at Gloucester, Harlequins or Sale truly say that they deserve to be competing in the top tier of Europe next season?
Restricting the number to six would make the bottom half of the table far more competitive during the business end of the season. The issue, of course, is that this is almost impossible, given the Champions Cup in its current state is a 24-team league, with eight sides apiece from the Prem, France and the United Rugby Championship. Equality was the name of the game when the competition was established but should England really have the same number of qualifiers as France when the former have 10 teams in their league and the latter 14?