Sarries fitness plan with Eddie
SaRaCEnS are in talks with Eddie Jones to ensure their England players go into the Six nations in peak condition, after receiving confirmation the Championship season won’t start until March. as revealed by Sportsmail, the country’s second-tier league will operate in a conference format after clubs were forced to accept their campaign could not be launched in January, as had been hoped. after being relegated as punishment for past salary-cap breaches, uncovered in a Sportsmail
investigation, saracens have been allocated a place in Conference A, along with Cornish Pirates, Ampthill, Jersey, London scottish and hartpury University.
One upshot of the delay is that England captain Owen Farrell, Maro itoje, Elliot Daly, Jamie George and the Vunipola brothers — Billy and Mako — could go into the six Nations without any game-time over the previous two months.
But saracens are seeking to arrange a number of pre-season fixtures, and planning meetings with their England contingent will take place next week.
Director of rugby Mark McCall told Sportsmail: ‘those players who did so well during the Autumn Nations Cup have been off for a couple of weeks. they will come back in with us on the 28th and we’ll sit down with them to talk about their next month with the club, before they go into the six Nations camp.
‘We are talking with Eddie Jones to see if he has playing requirements for some or all of those players. We will come up with a collaborative plan, but i know he and the players are keen. What they’ve not really had this year is a pre-season. they’ve gone straight from our games in August, september and October into being flat-out with England for seven or eight weeks.
‘it’s a unique opportunity for them to have a mini pre-season before the six Nations. together with England and those players, we’ll work out the best plan.’
For saracens, yesterday’s announcement by the rFU about the Championship format provided vital clarity — allowing them to prepare their quest for a swift return to the top division.
however, the north London club face a fixture shortage so they are seeking to set up additional games before the season begins on March 6.
‘Everybody would have loved to play a longer season,’ said McCall. ‘ When that wasn’t possible, there was the option of a conference system involving two games against each team in your conference and one against each team in the other. that would have been ideal, but we understand why it has to be delayed. A lot of the clubs are in different situations.
‘Now that we know the start date, we will try to put together a series of competitive fixtures before the league starts. We need to do that because we have twin objectives.
‘the primary objective is to get back into the Premiership, but the second is to develop our group — and there’s nothing like playing matches for those younger players to develop.’
And sale have been linked with an attempt to recruit saracens’ forwards and defence coach Alex sanderson to succeed steve Diamond as director of rugby.
Meanwhile, the rFU last night belatedly released annual injury data which highlighted the growing spectre of concussion.
Figures for the 2018-19 season — originally scheduled to have been published back in January — show that 21 per cent of players suffered at least one match concussion.
in total in that season, there were 166 match concussions and 38 instances of concussion sustained during training, which will intensify calls to cut back on full-contact sessions.
Other alarming statistics include the average severity of match concussions — time taken to return from such a head injury — being 22 days in 2018-19, which is 10 days longer than the mean since 2002, while 12 players had not returned within 12 weeks.