sport news ALEX BYWATER: London Irish's suspension the final nail in the coffin of a ... trends now
Last week, the government appointed two independent advisers to support the RFU and Premiership Rugby in their bid to get the game in England back on an even keel.
Frankly, lads, you've arrived too late. The horse has bolted. The goose is cooked. Confirmation on Tuesday night that London Irish have become the third club to be suspended from the Premiership over financial failings was the final nail in the coffin of what has been a truly disastrous season.
Over to you, Ralph Rimmer and Chris Pilling. Boy have the advisers - as well as RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney and Premiership chief Simon Massie-Taylor - got a job on their hands.
Those in English rugby's corridors of power must accept that what has gone on off the field this season has been totally unacceptable. To start the Premiership campaign with 13 teams and end it with 10 is a shocking indictment of not only the game itself, but how it is run.
A line in the sand must now be drawn.
London Irish became the third Premiership club sent to the wall due to financial failings
RFU CEO Bill Sweeney has a job on his hands at the end of a truly disastrous season for rugby
Nearly a third of the top teams in English rugby have now fallen by the wayside in less than 12 months, Irish the latest after the earlier demise of both Worcester and Wasps. Had this happened in English football, there would surely have been a national outcry.
As it is - with rugby a minority sport struggling for a place in the national conscious - many won't bat an eyelid. What a terrible shame, predominantly for those at Worcester, Wasps and Irish who have lost their jobs in professional sport and might struggle for a way back.
That includes players, of course, but also staff and management. They are the real victims in all this.
In November last year, Sweeney and Massive-Taylor appeared before the select committee for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in Westminster.
The pair faced brutal questioning over the financial failures of Wasps and Worcester. Sweeney and Massie-Taylor were torn limb from limb. Their organisations and their management of English rugby were slammed, but behind the headlines the truth was a lot of the DCMS hearing amounted to mere political grandstanding.
Members of Parliament had their moment in the sun. But the fact Irish have now followed Worcester and Wasps shows absolutely no lessons have been learned from rugby's day in
