It might be fair to say that the Irish rugby fan wouldn't count Mark McCaffrey and Premiership Rugby among their favourite figures in sport.
As the Aviva Premiership rugby season kicks off, there are discussions taking places between the RFU and the English clubs over agreements on releasing England players to the national side. Central to that agreement is that England will continue to overlook overseas based players.
Premiership Rugby chief executive Mark McCafferty pointed to the number of players from the league and made an interesting conclusion. The Premiership will provide 90 players from 15 countries at the World Cup, beating the Top 14's 88 players. This, according to McCaffrey, is more than any other club league in the world.
We think this is a sign that we are the best club league in the world.
All well and good except that the claim that the Premiership is the league that supplies the most players to the tournament is factually incorrect.
Did you know? The #GUINNESSPRO12 will have 107 players representing 10 countries at this year’s @rugbyworldcup
— United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) September 1, 2015
The argument that the Premiership is the best league in Europe is certainly up for debate then when you consider it has less representatives in the World Cup, and an English team hasn't won the main European tournament since 2007.
Perhaps it's an oversight on the part of the Telegraph and McCafferty over the number of Pro 12 representatives in the World Cup, or maybe it's straining the use of clubs when the Irish teams are called provinces, and the Welsh are regions. Or perhaps there's more in it.
It's understandable that a CEO would say the league he's in charge of is the best, but it doesn't make it seem like a strong argument.
