Dean Richards appointment a step towards Prem as Doncaster Knights seek investment

That is the message from Steve Lloyd, co-benefactor and president of Doncaster, who also confirmed the club is looking for external investors to make the Knights more attractive to Prem Rugby, if and when it expands from 10 to 12 clubs.

For all but one of the last 20 seasons, Doncaster have been a mainstay of English rugby’s second tier, frequently challenging for promotion on the pitch and meeting the RFU’s stringent minimum standards criteria off it, by passing the audit in each of the past four seasons.

But in February, after much deliberation, the Rugby Football Union Council voted in favour of scrapping promotion and relegation between the Prem and the Champ. That coincided with a poor season on the field for Doncaster, who took the decision midway through the campaign to begin the coming season as a hybrid operation by only signing players to part-time deals.

Both developments looked to have stalled their promotion ambitions but Thursday’s news that Richards - the former Leicester and Newcastle coach, as well as England and British Lions player - was coming in as director of rugby has reinvigorated that talk.

Yorkshire hasn’t had top-flight representation since Leeds Carnegie’s relegation in 2011.

Lloyd has long maintained his club is “oven-ready” to make the step up with the infrastructure in place. While he and fellow benefactor Tony DeMulder cannot fund a team in the Prem, Doncaster have held talks with potential backers and crucially believe they have support from within the governing body to bring top flight rugby union back to the county.

“Absolutely,” said Lloyd, when asked if Richards’ appointment was a statement that they are pushing for the Prem.

“The RFU knows, and we know, that they’ve got to get to 12 teams commercially and would like to as soon as practical. Rightly so, they want to have properly funded sides up there that are not going to fall apart on the amount that needs to be spent. Why shouldn’t we be part of that scenario? Compared to a Prem club, we are virtually debt free. We are in a good place.

“It’s been said many times, to us personally and in general conversation, that Yorkshire is a barren land as far as the Prem is concerned and we need to fill that gap. We need a Yorkshire team up there.”

On conversations about investment, Lloyd added: “That’s an unequivocal yes. It would be a fool who went up trying to pretend they had the assets and money to spend. It’s got to be involvement from a third party. And these people are around. We know there were under-bidders on Exeter and other clubs. That shows there are people out there.

“By going to the hybrid model we’ve made sure what we do for the moment is far more affordable. People say: ‘well surely going part-time is going in the opposite direction’.

“No it’s not. We’ve pruned the tree, we’re spending what is affordable. As soon as finance comes in we can start to move forward in our aspirations back to full-time rugby and to meet the requirements for the Prem.

“We want to get to that as fast as possible.”

And Richards is a big piece of the puzzle. “He’s got a presence and that’s what we needed," said Lloyd.