Success in professional sport is determined by results – and there is no doubt Richard Hill presided over a relegation-bound team at Bristol.

Anyone would be under pressure for seeing their team slide to the bottom of the table, and if Bristol wanted to bring in a new face then that was up to them.

But have we gone so far down the road now where we have lost touch with what is good and decent about rugby? Have we lost the fellowship the game once had?

I am talking about the way clubs deal with people, the uncertainty they create through a lack of information.

I want to make one thing clear here. While Richard is obviously a very dear friend of mine and a man I respect as a coach and a person, I am not suggesting he shouldn't have gone and another coach come in to replace him.

But what I am saying is that people seem to have very short memories. Richard Hill not only took Bristol up from the first division, he kept them up in the Guinness Premiership for four seasons, took them to third place and into the Heineken Cup.

And everybody has known for a while that Bristol have been under-funded on the playing side. The players have done their best, but there has simply not been the required quality there.

Eventually, in such a competitive league, you will always reap what you sow.

I am not saying I think Paul Hull is the wrong man for the job, but if he is not given the resources, I am not sure why anyone would expect him to do any better than Richard Hill.

I find it mind-boggling that a club with the tradition of Bristol cannot attract enough funding to remain in the top division.

And you cannot ask a coach, whether it is Hill, Hull or anyone, to continually make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

The league does not lie – and Bristol are where they are because they have ultimately had to rely on bottom-of-the-table players.

So what is next for Bristol? I am probably going to get hounded for saying this, but I honestly think the best thing for the club now would be to go down to the first division, consolidate, refinance and start building again.

They need to get the crowds back and start putting faith in young, local players.

But it is too simplistic to just say, "they should rebuild and then come straight back up". There must be big question marks over whether Bristol will come straight back up if they go down. I defy anyone to say, "yes, they definitely will" based on their current financial uncertainty.

You need money to succeed in rugby these days, just as you do in football. And if you are a director of a rugby club that needs major financing, and you don't have the money, then you should do the honourable thing and get out. Alarm bells started ringing for me when we heard at the beginning of the season that Bristol were operating £1 million below the salary cap. That is a colossal level of under-investment, it really is.

As far as I am concerned, Richard Hill has been a casualty of mismanagement and bad directorship.

I honestly believe the directors have not given Bristol a chance this season – they are just as much to blame, if not more so, than the players or coaches.