Game needs shake-up - RFU chief
Rugby Football Union chief executive Francis Baron believes English rugby needs a new structure to end conflict between the clubs and the national side.
England are currently searching for a new coach after the departure of Andy Robinson following a string of poor results. And Baron admits the current structure of the English game needs to be examined to help the national side get back on track.
"We've got to look at everything," Baron told BBC Radio 5 Live's Sportsweek programme. "In the first six years of professionalism England led the way, we had very successful club performances and a successful England side. What's happened over the last two to three years is that countries have put in place better systems than ours, they have leapfrogged us, Ireland in particular."
He added: "They have a very, very effective system, both with their Heineken Cup sides and the international side. We've had a group looking at this for the past five months, we believe we need to look, us and the clubs, at a whole range of options about the playing structure of the game.
"Some of them are fairly radical options. We have to look at whether we play too many games, whether promotion and relegation is still relevant at the top of the game.
"You can't just look at release dates in isolation, you've got to have a structure where the club game and the international game work together and not against each other.
"At the moment our structure tends to engender conflict between the club and the country. Ireland have a structure which works harmoniously and that's what we've got to get.
"Rob (Andrew) is trying to come up with ideas where we change our structure so we have harm and productive relationship with our clubs and eliminate all those areas of conflict that sadly have been all too prevalent over the last few years."
