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England need a limit to playing time

Ragey Erasmus

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I think it would be daft to claim that fatigue was the only reason England are doing so badly this year but I think the RFU and PRL as a matter of urgency need to agree to some sort of limit to how long players can play for club and country. That chart that was around a while ago really highlighted just how much we are flogging our players and it cannot be good for them either in terms of on pitch performance, longevity or injuries.
 
Agreed,
It'll be a tough sell to the clubs - obviously they don't want their top players breaking down but equally they're the ones that pay their wages and want them to be doing their jobs.
Maybe increase the compensation clubs get from the EPS agreement so they can afford to rest them more?
 
You'd have to increase it by a LOT to be fair,
I mean you're telling (for example) Saracens that they're going to be without their first choice flyhalf for **however many rest games**, meaning they have to try and sign someone of equivalent skill to fill in in their absence.
This also then screws over the clubs with less money/less international players as the rich clubs now have ridiculously stacked sides and when the internaitonal players are available their benches will be ridiculous.
 
It would be an impossible sell to clubs.

Some sort of incentive system would need to be in place but the current system just isn't sustainable. Whilst not as bad as the French, the clubs hold way too much sway over how players are used. I get that they are paying the wages but flogging the players as they do along with England just isn't doing the game in England any good. It's not even like all this extra money is helping them dominate the likes of Pro 14 teams, who seem able to rotate players more despite having a greater proportion involved in international duty.

Ultimately if the worst comes to the worst, I think the RFU should ram through some form of rule to introduce a central contract light system, maybe with a provision that players cannot be involved in club level games in the rest week in the 6N or after the likes of a Lions tour. If the Irish and Kiwis can make some sort of system work then there is no reason we can't. It's a matter of will.
 
Reduce the size of the Prem, prevent the regular starters from playing in the AWC, limit the number of minutes played per season.
 
Reduce the size of the Prem, prevent the regular starters from playing in the AWC, limit the number of minutes played per season.

Never going to happen.

One way it might happen would be if clubs could maybe have a cap to bring in players to cover EPS players named in the first squad in October or whenever it is like we do with injury players.
 
This is becoming like Wendyball. National team players flogged and expected to perform at their optimum. Sensible, but as the saying goes money talks; BS walks.
 
Reduce the size of the Prem, prevent the regular starters from playing in the AWC, limit the number of minutes played per season.
Can summer tours, reduce the AIs, make Europe straight knock out and introduce regions. If you're serious.

And it always seems particularly bad post Lions. Time to consign that to history? Of course not, it generates squillions.
 
Never going to happen.
But reducing playing time without reducing matches will?
I've already detailed a way in which it might possibly get past a vote (it wouldn't, but I feel that it's more likely than any of the other suggestions mooted).
Can summer tours, reduce the AIs, make Europe straight knock out and introduce regions. If you're serious.
I'm completey serious - and have already written out my plans in detail this season, so didn't want to do so again.
However, canning the summer tours is utterly ridiculous; as, if you do that, you have no-one to play in the Autumn.
Reducing the AIs... if you mean returning it to 3 matches; then fair enough; reduciong it further and you banrupt grass roots rugby, where RFU plow most of their cash into.
Make Europe straight knock out will be far less popular than my suggestion.
Introduce regions - that horse bolted 23 years ago, it's a tad late now to even try. I don't mind the idea too much personally, and have given a fair bit of thought as to how it could be done; but I'm one of very few, and almost no-one can think of a way of doing it that ends up more like the Irish success than the Welsh failure.
 
However, canning the summer tours is utterly ridiculous; as, if you do that, you have no-one to play in the Autumn.
Just play in e.g. Australia in their summer, as part of the November Internationals.
Just because you can the June/July window doesn't necessarily mean you can the southern hemisphere as a venue for half the tests.
 
How would you reduce the prem size then?
Easy - As of the XXXX-YYYY season, the premiership will have 10 teams - come on man, you've commented on my suggestions before.
Just play in e.g. Australia in their summer, as part of the November Internationals.
Just because you can the June/July window doesn't necessarily mean you can the southern hemisphere as a venue for half the tests.
Ahhh - so screw the NH even further; but this time, to not even benefit the SH.
 
Can summer tours, reduce the AIs, make Europe straight knock out and introduce regions. If you're serious.

And it always seems particularly bad post Lions. Time to consign that to history? Of course not, it generates squillions.
Doing that would kill English rugby, I reckon the rest of the world would just stop playing England and English teams if they did that. The problem is the Premiership, as RR said the pro 14 is thriving despite a huge gulf in wealth, why would those unions give more up to save the Premiership and English rugby?

The only thing English rugby as a whole (RFU and the English LNR, forgotten the name) has control over is their league and internationals. If England were to stop going on summer tours their only hope of getting SH teams to Twickers is sharing the gate. If they tried to push for a knock out European Cup I'd imagine we'd just go on without them and it'd probably lead to a European super rugby which would be a better product than the prem, earn more money and see the best English players go to France, and any player who is Irish, Welsh, Scottish or Italian qualified move too. The Premiership is the problem this season, although the Lions tour is the bigger problem and I'd happily see it go but I'm in the minority there, their choice is get rid of the cap or make it bigger at the risk of stunting the development of young English talent, I don't think that would happen because there'd be more rotation or stick with the status quo. Allowing clubs spend X more on salaries on four Not English qualified players would be my solution (Although it'd bugger us). You could even set something up like the luxury tax in the NBA as a fine for clubs if they go a certain amount of years with four foreign players while not producing enough England players.
 
As someone has said before the AW cup should be an under 23 contest. play AW cup fixtures in blocks staight after international games, and change it to the same home and away games like europe. Thats 6 weeks of pool games 1 week semis 1 week final. So AIs then 3 week aw 6N then 3 week off finals in a 2 week block after european fixtures.

The home and away fixtures add 2 more weeks onto the season but its 2 weeks teams are resting the bulk of their squad.

Aw cup played 1 game during round 4 and 1 game in round 5 of six nations meaning after this we go straight back into prem rugby.

Aw cup bath v chiefs
Sun 18th march

AP bath v chiefs
Fri 23rd march

This is just how its worked out this season but it proves a point. Look at the chiefs squad last week quite a few first team players in thebsquad plus internations in 6n plus injuries mean the still fit players get little to no rest, especially chiefs who need them so we can push to top the prem and win it.
 
Can summer tours, reduce the AIs, make Europe straight knock out and introduce regions. If you're serious.

And it always seems particularly bad post Lions. Time to consign that to history? Of course not, it generates squillions.

I was being slightly facetious. But if we want to give the national team the best chance then something has to give somewhere. If all T1 countries have roughly the same international workload then you have to have to look at the domestic set up.
 
It's no real surprise that the knives are out once again. Every time England have a slight dip in form the calls come for central contracts, regionalism, caps on non-EQPs, ring-fencing, conference system, etc. Strangely when it goes well, like the 2 years before this month, there's not much in the way of praise for the club system. Generally because NZ are the best loads of people seem to think their set-up must be the best system for every other country.

The Premiership supplies the national squad with an absolute **** ton of qualified players (more than any other league?) getting good quality game time, it's up to the RFU to properly utilise this. The current problem is the backrow, but you can look at pretty much every single Prem team and see English qualified backrow talent throughout, it's not their fault if Jones fails to identify and select them. As was spoken about on the other thread, Chiefs alone could supply at least 3 better backrows than the ones Eddie has gone for this 6N.

If you ask rugby fans around the world to give you one positive about English rugby I bet the vast majority would say strength in depth. If you asked for a weakness they'd probably say selection or tactics. Looks to me like the league is doing its job and the national set-up isn't. I understand that the English Lions have played a lot of rugby, but almost all of them could be replaced by equally good players, which is probably why we have so many arguments about selection.

Also the players' role in the large amount of game time is almost always ignored. When you have most players sending their agents into negotiations with the instructions of getting the highest amount of money possible it's likely to have an effect on the depth that the club has. Have the players, collectively through their union, ever suggested some kind of cap on salaries in exchange for a cap on game time?
 
Things go well and the cracks get papered over, think of all the games, england wasnt playing great in all of them but then the 'finishers' came on and brought real momentum, england got away with not blooding to many young back rowers because our team was winning, same with player fatigue, when we were winning no one said rest players as we wanted to keep winning then we lose players to injury and cracks start to show. We all of a sudden have a shocking back row and a team of fatigued lions.
 

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