Bath Rugby’s rise has been built on stability, but Bruce Craig is still looking well beyond the club’s own success. The Bath co-owner says the game needs a direction of travel between La Ligue Nationale de Rugby, the United Rugby Championship and the Prem by the end of the year, because the current structure remains, in his words, one of rugby’s biggest problems.
That is a significant point coming from a club that now has real momentum. Bath claimed their first league title for 29 years in 2025, and Craig says that progress has been backed by him and James Dyson. Under Johann van Graan, the club has a stronger academy and a new training base, while the Rec 2.0 redevelopment is due to start in March and finish by September 2028, when Bath should receive the facilities it needs.
Why Craig wants a decision now
The argument is not simply about administration. Craig believes the lack of commonality between the major leagues makes life harder commercially and for TV, and he says the game needs a right answer because otherwise it does not work with punters. He remains frustrated by the mothballing of the proposed World Club Championship, and he says there has still been no real progress on a cleaner structure for elite competition.
His preference is clear enough. Craig is not convinced by a format that could leave teams with dead rubbers in the second leg of a tie, and he says that if rugby wants real jeopardy it should go straight knockout, where every game would carry proper weight. That is the kind of hard-edged argument that has followed European club rugby for years, and Craig says English clubs have made similar pushes before, including for changes to the original union-run Heineken Cup.
There is also a sense of timing around the broader club game. Craig has heard mutterings that some clubs may consider serving notice in 2028 of their intention to leave the existing tournament and start afresh from 2030, which only raises the stakes for a decision now. Bath, meanwhile, are not waiting for the politics to settle before getting on with the rugby. They are due to face Montpellier in their opening pool game on Saturday night, and the match arrives with the club’s long-term direction already under discussion.
Craig, speaking with the confidence of someone who has seen how slowly these things move, said it has been more difficult than he expected and that anyone would have wanted it to happen faster. He also noted that business and rugby are not the same thing, even if people assume they will be. On that evidence, the message is straightforward: Bath are in a stronger place than they have been for years, but Craig still wants the rest of the sport to decide where it is going.
