WE'RE SEEING A TRAGEDY OF HUMAN PROPORTIONS

Fury and fear as Jersey become the latest rugby club to go bust with the players alerted by a text

- ALEX SPINK

RFU chiefs today face "pressure for change" after being accused of falling asleep at the wheel as Jersey became the fourth major club to go bust inside a year.

Four months after winning English rugby's second tier and a fortnight after crushing Bath in the Premiership Cup, Jersey Reds joined Worcester, Wasps and London Irish in ceasing to trade.

The RFU sought to blame the club's investors for taking "decisions at this early point in the season to place the club in such a position". But that was met with contempt both from Reds chairman Mark Morgan (above, far right) and Simon Halliday (above, right), the former England star turned Championship boss.

 

Both pointed the finger at the Union, with Halliday shocked to not even be contacted by the blazers at Twickenham.

"To say I was disappointed would be the wrong word," he said, "disassociating" himself from the RFU statement. "We are dealing with a tragedy of human proportions.