HQ: Mark, at the halfway stage of the season the team are unbeaten and have a nine point lead at the top of the table. Is that in line with the team’s targets and expectations when the season started back in September?

ME: Yeah! I know the team, after a few games, started to talk about going through the season unbeaten. Looking at it from a slightly more removed position, I would say that I’m not surprised we are where we are.

 

HQ: Overall, what have been the highlights from your point of view so far?

ME: From a playing perspective, I thought we played particularly well against the Pirates at home, pretty well against Exeter and very, very well for the first 25 minutes or so at Bedford.

Off the field, the 17^th (September) - Nicky’s statue and the Lexus Stand opening was a big day. (Also,) I suppose the way we have been able to keep it feeling like a significant sporting event, rather than just feel like we were treading water for a year.

 

HQ: What has surprised you the most?

ME: That’s a good question. Not a lot, to be honest. Maybe the scale of the crowd base, the way it’s been pretty consistent. I always felt we’d get a big crowd for London Welsh and any top of the table game that happened to come along. I was confident that if we got a 1 v 2 game we’d get a good crowd, but what has surprised me a little is how well the crowd numbers have stood up for what on the face of it, when you looked at the fixtures back in June or July I did think: “that’s going to be a struggle”. With all due deference to Doncaster, or even today (Bees) to be honest, they’re not household names. I think that the way that the average has held up, rather than peaks and troughs has probably been the most surprising thing.

 

HQ: We have set the attendance record for ND1, had another crowd over 10,000 and averaged 9,141 in the five home games so far. How much does that exceed your original budget projections?

ME: It certainly exceeds the projections we had on May 2^nd! That moved pretty quickly to be honest because season tickets are a really a good indictor, well they are at this club now anyway, of what your crowd base is going to be.

 

HQ: What did you expect originally?

ME: Opinion was varied around the place. I was being a bit of a Jeremiah at the time. The most optimistic among us said it would be great to get 4,000 and the more pessimistic said 2,500. It’s about 4,650 now. We’ve done about 150 half-season tickets. To do 4,650 is terrific, to be honest.

 

HQ: I know we shouldn’t “count our chickens” but let’s speculate a little. What would you expect those numbers to translate into, in terms of season ticket holders and average attendance, if we are playing next season in the Guinness Premiership?

ME: This time next year, I’d be hoping we’d do 6,000 season tickets and our average attendance, if we are back in the Premiership, would be over 10,000. Those would be our next two targets. I think that’s achievable across the Premiership games, I’m not sure on the average attendance. I don’t think we’d hold that, maybe, across Powergen games.

 

HQ: Staying with the GP theme, in your opinion what will be the keys to having a successful squad next season in the Premiership - not just for Quins but for anybody?

ME: I do think the Premiership has taken some completely unwarranted, uninformed and lazy journalistic stick in the last few months. Utter nonsense about how it’s all dour and defensive.

I think the standard in the Premiership has gone up again, in the sense that the squads are bigger. Look at someone like London Irish this week - who made 12 changes (against Wasps). Two years ago there is no way that London Irish would have had the squad to make 12 changes.

Everybody has talked about, for the last couple of years, that the bottom of the Premiership has got stronger and I think that’s definitely true. It’s gone on again in the sense that the bottom and middle have almost merged.

So, increasingly you need a bigger squad than you used to. There is more rotation than there was. You need at least 25, 26 players who you can say are first team players and there’s not an awful lot between them.

Why are Toulouse the strongest club in Europe? They pretty much have two internationals for every position, but they don’t have cover players as such. I think the Premiership is moving slowly towards that, as it gets financially stronger.

I do think the Premiership puts a premium on having a very strong forward pack.  I don’t think it’s the weather conditions, I think it’s the length of the season, the number of games we play.

 

HQ: If (I’d better not say when!) we go back up in April, how many players do you think we would need to achieve that type of squad?

ME: I wouldn’t like to put a figure on it because you’ve got a budget that Dean’s working to and he’ll get the best players he can for the budget we’ve got. We talk about it a fair bit and we all agree that clearly the squad we’ve got at the moment is a very good squad for National Division 1, but wouldn’t be a strong enough squad for the Premiership.

People say we’ve got the same squad as we did last year, but we haven’t. People forget that yes we’ve got Andrew Mehrtens who is a big addition, but we’ve lost people like Simon Maling, an All Black and actually the squad we put together – Maurice Fitz Gerald was a good tight head prop, Geo Cronje never played but money had been allocated and all the rest of it, Ace Tiatia, Daffyd James, there were a number of really quite high quality players who actually aren’t around this year.

So, we all agree that we’ve got some good players and we want to keep them and there are other areas where we are going to have to strengthen and that is fairly self evident.

 

HQ: Talking of signings, the rumour mill is already churning – as I’m sure you know! Are there any new players you can tell us about already?

ME: No! (Laughs!)

 

HQ: Given the current, unstable, relationship between the GP and the RFU, is it viable/desirable to have a strong English element within the squad?

ME: We work within the European labour market, there is promotion and relegation. English club rugby is probably, if not the best paid then certainly one of the (top) two, in the sense of most money spent, there are more contracts. In sum, there is more money spent on professional rugby union players in England and France than any other country in the world. That is always going to attract people. It shouldn’t surprise anybody. They are the two biggest economies, it’s as simple as that. They are the two biggest TV rugby markets in the world, with the possible exception of South Africa.

So, the Guinness Premiership is always going to be a multi-national league. I think that is enormously advantageous for English rugby. From a consumer, spectator point of view, they have the opportunity to see people of the calibre of Matthew Burke, Andrew Mehrtens, Sebastian Chebal every week in their league.

I don’t think that compromises English rugby from the national sense at all. How many professional rugby union players does any one country need? We must have well in excess of 250 full time English qualified players. That is more than any other country in the world, with the possible exception of France.

You cannot argue, the facts don’t support it, that somehow the number of foreign players in the Premiership mitigates against and blocks off young English talent. I hear the same argument in Rugby League and its rubbish.

In some ways you’d love to have aside full of kids from South West London, Surrey, Hampshire and Sussex, but it isn’t going to happen. That doesn’t mean you don’t pour a lot of money and resource into trying to produce a lot of your own players because there are advantages to that, there is no doubt about it. That’s one of the things I’d like to think I’ve changed since I’ve been at the Club. However, the economics of the situation are such that you will never have 35 home grown players.

 

HQ: Isn’t there a positive discrimination against signing English players because you’ve got more control over the foreign ones?

ME: In the sense they are available more?

 

HQ: Yes

ME: I suppose at the top level that’s true, but most of your English players come up through you own system. Of course you do sign English players, like Will Greenwood, but it’s unusual.

I still think that we are at something of a disadvantage (at Quins) because we had virtually no youth development programme from….., well, ever really, until about 2000. People who should now be their mid 20s, 26, 27, 28 who have been at the Club since they were 18 – we haven’t got any of those, possibly Jim Evans.

Believe it or not, because the sums of money in rugby are not absolutely enormous, they are very good –especially for guys in their twenties compared to what they would be earning, but there is still a reasonable amount of loyalty, particularly among the English guys, to the club they started with.

Increasingly, that will become less and less. Quite a number of players, after 5 or 6 years at a club actually do think they could do with a bit of a kick start somewhere else. That’s fair enough, but interestingly, you don’t tend to see English guys leaving clubs that are well resourced.

 

HQ: Where are we most likely to be casting our net for players for next season? France, the Northern Hemisphere generally, the Antipodes, all of the above?

ME: All over the world! You honestly don’t make a conscious decision to say we’ll sign him because he’s English, or we’ll sign him because he isn’t English.

 

HQ: When the Lexus Stand was officially opened, you said you had been working on the new South Stand for six months already! What can you tell us about it’s proposed size etc and when are the target dates for construction?

ME: Things take a long time, the Lexus took well over three years. I would certainly hope to get planning permission this year, with a view to ideally and I stress this is by no means a done deal, get it up by September 2007. The idea being we put in a stand, or maybe a terrace, not sure, or maybe a mix, for about 3,600. That would take the capacity up to nearly 14,000.

 

HQ: Would that it for the time being, or will you turn your attention to a more permanent structure at the North Stand end?

ME: (Laughs!) Well, you’d have a look at the North but it’s a nice little stand and it does hold 2,300 people. We are very tight on space there too. I think 14,000 without having to lose the corners or the circulatory nature of the stadium, would be fine for a bit.

 

HQ: Finally Mark, it’s only about 6 weeks to the start of the Rugby League season. How is the joint venture working so far? Is it going to plan?

ME: It’s good. To be honest (so far it’s only really involved)  myself and ticketing – we use the same ticketing system. Merchandising will be next section that does joint work because obviously with the same name and colours it makes sense to do a lot of the same merchandising, although the shirt will be slightly different.

Other than that and a bit of my time because I’ve got observer status on their board and the fact that they are here, it doesn’t have a huge impact day to day yet. Maybe when their season starts. Obviously they share the training ground, but again they are in pre season and we are in the middle of our season. We’re just letting it take its course really and see what comes out of it.

I am of the view, and have said so many times, their best chance of being a success is to piggy back the name and colours. I don’t think you can run two identities out of the same stadium in two such closely related sports.

It’s a tough sell is rugby league in the South, but I do think it’s a good game and given the population base there are enough people in London and South East England who, given the opportunity, will come along on a regular basis to watch high quality rugby league. If there is no confusion about where do they play, what’s their name, who are they, its giving them the very best possible chance of being successful.

I don’t think it’s a “gimme”. It’s a very good chance - I’ve said 50-50, but if it does prove successful then all kinds of other opportunities open up.

The other attraction to me is that I don’t think it’s replicable. There are very few towns of sufficient size where you could put (both codes). You are always looking for things in sport that your rivals can’t replicate. I have to say, that’s one of the things that attracted me to it. There aren’t many things you can do, in the very, very long run that might give you a once and for all competitive advantage that would be very hard to eat away.

Anybody who looks at this and says: “Oh this is the way its going to go, duel code clubs all over the country”, has got absolutely no understanding of sports geography and the culture of sports teams and their relationship with their town and their history and all the rest of it.

This happens to be a strong rugby area on the edge of a capital city. There must be a reasonably good chance to get 6, 7, 8, 9,000 (people) to watch regularly.

 

HQ: What has been the interest from Union followers so far, in terms of season tickets?

ME: They had a very small season ticket base. I think about 350-400 (Union fans have bought season tickets) which is quite significant. Also, a lot of people are saying I’m going to try it out and see what its like.

I don’t know if enough people are going to come along and watch rugby league in London in the next 3-5 years, at this ground, in these colours. Frankly, neither does anybody else. You do the best job you can, give as much support as you can and we’ll see how we go. They are really nice people and we get on well.

 

HQ: Isn’t it fair to say that if it doesn’t work under this scheme, it’s hard to see how it would work?

ME: Personally, yeah I agree with that. I don’t know where you would go in London where you would have a better chance than here. I think there will always be rugby league in London, but at what level? For a professional Super League team in London, if it doesn’t work here, I don’t think it will work anywhere - or at least not for a long, long, long time.

 

HQ: Mark, thanks a lot. Happy New Year!

ME: Pleasure. Happy New Year!

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