It’s an interesting debate, and I have no doubt if you asked the RFU or Premiership if they’d want Saints, Wigan and Leeds in their game they’d say yes. The three clubs would punch their weight and be wealthier than they’ve ever been. But that would ignore history, culture, etc, which at the moment outweigh any financial positives I would imagine. I think any potential merger of rules would still favour RU more than us, but there are some in RU who have openly questioned how to make their game more exciting and open, whilst there are some in RL who decry the loss of specialists on the park such as scrum halves and loose forwards. You combine the complaints and there is some common ground there, but it would still be a stretch to combine them enough to make everybody happy. An open merger of sports with a new authority, a new tv partner, a new set of rules etc is one thing, but as it stands a merger would simply be our biggest clubs being co-opted into Union, and we’d never stand for that as fans.