Skerrett will talk to his present club, Wigan, today, but they have made it clear that they want him to go in order to bring down their wage bill. Skerrett would prefer to go to a club nearer his Yorkshire home, but Bradford’s Brian Smith has ruled his club out of the running.
Wigan, who say that another player might have to go to bring them within next season’s salary cap, have resigned themselves to losing their Test winger, Jason Robinson, who is leaving for Australia next June.Robinson had hinted that he would prefer to stay, rather than taking up a four-year contract with the ARL. The results are that professional cricketers are underpaid and that the game has been vulgarised by a variety of silly competitions. More important: there is no place now for the gifted amateur of the past. I hope Dr Gwyn Jones (assuming he passes his exams, as I am sure he will), will be able to play open-side flanker in the first-class game for as long as he likes.I do not want to be gratuitously offensive – heaven forbid – but, most of those involved in recent negotiations or non-negotiations do not seem to be up to the job. They should try to get hold of the judgment of Mr (later Lord) Justice Slade, in the case of Derek Underwood and the MCC over the Kerry Packer “circus.” They might also have a look at the recent judgment of the European Court in the case of the Belgian footballer who was kept with a club against his will. United Kingdom law has always been against restraint of trade: European law, which now takes precedence over the home-grown variety, is even more opposed to it.There are further lessons to be learnt from cricket.

The truth is that the County Championship cannot properly support a fully professional structure. It has already quietly dropped (or I think it has dropped) its limitation on foreigners, including Welshmen, Scotsmen and Irishmen, in First Division sides.If it attempted to enforce any such restrictions, it would come to grief in the law courts. And if it persists with its comparable rule for the divisions, the RFU may find itself in similar trouble, always assuming that these artificial and unnecessary divisions continue to exist, as I hope they do not.Those rugby commentators who write off the claims of the clubs and the players as mere pretensions, do not seem to understand the law. Argentina, and perhaps Italy and Romania – who knows? – are to be brought in as well. At the same time the RFU proposes to restrict those selected for the divisions to those qualified for England. The union’s attachment to the Divisional Championship is quite extraordinary The spectators do not flock to it The players resent it.

The new managers, such as John Hall, of Bath, are against it. It is a complete waste of time and effort.If the attachment to the old Divisional Championship is extraordinary, the new one proposed by the RFU beggars belief. As Peter Wheeler, of Leicester, has said, the professional clubs do not want to tinker with the laws. My guess is that they will indeed be modified in the interests of greater movement and more “accessibility” – but that these changes will come about because of pressure from the television companies rather than because they are wanted by the clubs themselves.As far as competitions are concerned, however, the clubs are fully entitled to impose their views on the RFU. Most of such knowledge would consist of mistakes to be avoided.There is, however, a good deal to be said for the division between the Football Association and the Football League Something very similar is inevitable in rugby union The RFU would be like the FA.

Those who are employed to instruct and entertain us on the great questions of the day, have been equally quiet. For where is that high moral tone for which Hugo Young is renowned? His voice is not heard Where is Polly Toynbee? She is silent. Is there no sound even from William Rees-Mogg? We listen, and we listen in vain.
From all this I conclude that rugby is not quite as important in our national life as some people think it is. The only player the majority of citizens could name is Will Carling, and that would partly be for reasons unconnected with the game of rugby. If there were a comparable row taking place in football or cricket, we may be sure that there would be more chunks of weighty comment flying around the place.But cricket and football have had their rows Their structures are in place, more or less.