By Prof
July 28 2006

In part 10 of the report from the Quinssa Meet The Management Dean Richards and Mark Evans answer questions about how the deal with London Broncos will affect Harlequins both on and off the field.

Q: What are your views of the benefits of the link up with the Broncos?

ME: Off the field I think it’s an idea that I have been attracted to for years and years and years, I used to chat with Peter Deacon who you might know from Bradford Bulls worked at Saracens and Warrington and Sale. He’s one of the few administrators in the game that has worked both sides of the codes. He’s a great guy and I learned a lot from him, we used to say’ wouldn’t be good if you could have one stadium used by both codes’ and so you can build up a really, really strong, I don’t like the word it’s over used but, one club. When people say Harlequins they don’t say ‘I’m going to Harlequins to watch the rugby union’ do you? You say ‘I’m going to Harlequins to watch the rugby’. And that is what I hope it will achieve, that for 12 months of the year people will say ‘I’m going to The Stoop to watch the rugby’ and whether it’s rugby union or rugby league. Some people will only watch union and some will only watch league which is fine and some people will watch a lot of one and a bit of the other and some sad bastards like me will probably watch all of it and can we play Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays as well!

I think if you’re a rugby league fan in London you’ve got to be a real rugby league die hard because it not easy – they’ve moved around, there’s no great grass roots in the game in the south, at the moment they can’t play home games in June or July so they play three of their home games away, and they even played a home game in France this year which I struggled with, they even played one in Aberavon which has got to be worse! [laughs] So if you’ve made the effort to watch rugby league in London already you’re pretty committed.

Harlequins is a big rugby name that’s never been a big, big club and as part of that, if it works, and there are no guarantees, if it works then it will grow Harlequins as a rugby club. It will be the only club, to my knowledge, in the world that runs both codes from the same name out of the same facility and I think that is potentially very, very powerful.

Is it guaranteed to be a success? No, of course it’s not. There’s no such thing in life as a cert, it there was I’d be down the bookies putting money on it. It might not work but I think it’s got a good chance. If it works I think it will help reinforce the change in this club that is taking place today and will continue over the next 5, 10, however many years.

Rugby league was never going to work in London out of a football ground, I don’t think it was ever going to work with an Australian name – Broncos which are from Brisbane (or Denver depending on your sport). I think to give it a fighting chance it needed to be in a rugby ground with a rugby name with a breathing space to allow them to become viable and that’s the deal as it stands.

I know people have said ‘what’s in it for Quins?’ but I’m not going to give figures because they are commercially confidential, we have a deal with NEC and I don’t say what the deal is with them either and I’m not going to do it with the rugby league guys.

Some of the stuff I’ve read is really laughable like ‘I’ve deliberately done a really crap deal so it puts us at a disadvantage’ – yeah, that’s likely isn’t it?! [laughs] 

If it works I think it will be tremendously exciting, I think it’s about 50:50, I can’t see a down side except for a bit of reputational damage perhaps but I can possibly see a really big up side.

DR: On the playing side, let me say, first of all - I love rugby league. I know the purists will say ‘it’s a boring game, you just go up and down’ but it’s a different type of skill level to what we have and different types of skills as well. There is a crossover of skills that they use and I love this cross-pollination of ideas. I spent a lot of time up at Hull, I went up to Bradford Northern and spent a lot of time with Brian Noble, I took Leicester up to Wigan for three days in February one year. I love some of the concepts and ideas and the skills that they have. 

I think what we will get out of this link is the ability to utilise the experiences they have, not just the players’ but also the coaches’, their thoughts and perhaps even some of their players as well. To push some of our players to train with their side on the odd occasion – their running lines are different, their ball handling skills are different, you talk to Tony Rea and Mark will agree with this – he’ll talk about the grip first of all, then he develops that from the grip to how you pass and your vision and everything else. Defensively they’re so different to union, they have no concept of scrums and rucks and how it revolves around them, but once you get away from that their understanding of defence is second to none. Some of the stuff that they use and some of the ideas that they have – the cross-pollination is going to be tremendous because it will be right on our doorstep. I can see at times that we will be training with these guys on the same field, we might play 30 minutes of union then 30 minutes of league just to bring in different ideas and to challenge the players. I’m really looking forward to it.

Tony Rea works with us, they’ve brought in a conditioner called Tibo Gereau (sp?) who was up at Saracens for a short while, he’s been round the circuit, he’s worked with Frankie Fredericks again he’s a very experienced strength conditioner and again different ideas will be coming when we work alongside these guys. 

I don’t see how from a playing point of view that we could lose out. There’s obviously the pitch situation up at Roehampton, there are enough pitches and the facilities are fine so it’s a no brainer from our point of view – we can only win.

 

Q: How could the Quins' board enter into negotiations with the Bronco's regarding a merger, which were no doubt lengthy and fairly complex, when it was clear that the number one priority for the club was avoiding relegation?

ME: That’s a bit of a strange question, it’s saying that you can only do one thing at a time, I know men are often accused of that – not being able to multitask, and I know I’ve been accused of over doing that at times [laughs]. 

In any one season, as Dean has said, the league is your number one priority, but this question suggests that you’re never going to build a stand because you might go down, you’re never going to grow the business because you’re not sure, the idea is frankly, without being rude, silly. It implies that it would have been good to do it if we had been doing well but it’s not ok to do it if we’re not – it’s either a good thing or a bad thing. I happen to know that the questioner thinks it’s a very bad thing and it’s a perfectly legitimate view to have but it’s not one that I happen to share. I do understand the argument that Harlequins has always been a rugby union club, and that it should stay a rugby union club, and it shouldn’t extend it’s name to another team. I don’t agree with them but I can understand the logic of those arguments. I don’t accept the logic that says you can’t possibly do one thing when you should be concentrating on another. All of us concentrate on our families and our jobs and a whole host of things and it’s no different when you are running a club.

Q: When did you first start working on this deal with the broncos?

ME: I first started talking to people at Broncos about four years ago but I didn’t think it was doable until we’d made the changes to the stadium. 

Q: Was that when they were playing here?

ME: No they’d gone by the time I’d arrived. I was the one who kicked London Irish out, I never got enough credit for that in my opinion [laughs]. I first spoke to a guy there and said ‘ one day I think it would be great if we could do this, would you be interested?’ I just didn’t think we had the infrastructure in place to do it. But once we had the stadium improvements through it was pretty straightforward, it didn’t take much time. This idea that things like this take hours and hours is wrong, I’ve always thought that a good deal is a quick deal. If it’s a good idea and people are on board for it and they’re enthusiastic then what’s to decide?

 

In part 11 we will hear what the management think about how we would cope back up against the teams in the Premiership