Secret Player
Our f ormer pr o provides a unique insight into the game
THE MOST unnerving period in a player’s career doesn’t arrive in a tunnel, as you might imagine. No, the nagging doubts wriggle into your mind at contract negotiation time. The last six months of a current deal can be excruciating, with a plethora of questions to be answered.
How long will I sign for? Will they give me a decent salary increase to reflect my improvement as a player? Will they dock my wages, since I’ve been injured for eight months with an ACL injury? Will they sign me at all after my ACL? Will they look at academy prospects instead of me? Should I look abroad? I wonder if a decent club would take me in the Top 14 or Pro14?
These questions gnaw away at every jobbing pro. Re-signing would offer a huge relief. The dream could continue and you could afford to pay the mortgage for another two or three years.
Then the Covid-19 virus insinuated its way into our lives.
If your contract was up for renewal in June 2020, you’ve been dealt the cruellest hand – probably since rugby turned professional in the first place. Lockdown has dried up revenue streams for everyone. Sports teams and federations all over have been hurt.
The WRU were first to lose £10m after cancelling Wales v Scotland back in March. The RFU have forecast a £107m hole if the autumn Internationals are not played at Twickenham. Over in France, Racing 92 are reportedly haemorrhaging €1.5m per month.
The Australian union has asked players to take up to 65% pay cuts, Ireland and
New Zealand 50%, South Africa 45%, with Scottish rugby and the WRU asking for a 25% reduction to offset lost revenues. Cuts of 35% have been mooted by French club presidents.
Clubs are holding onto money to pay for next season’s staff. I have 40 to 50 mates who have heard: “We can’t afford to offer you anything, we’ll have to make do with what we have, sorry.”
This applies to coaches too. Some of the CVs being touted are incredible. There are several members of England’s World Cup party that still cannot find a club. One of them is a close friend and was negotiating with six clubs in
January. Now not one of them will talk to him. Three coaches I know in France – skills and defence specialists – were told that their specialised positions won’t be there next year and they’ll simply have forwards and backs coaches.
Everyone is asking, “Where do we go now?” Some have been lucky. Freddie Burns and Greig Laidlaw are bound for
Japan. But what alternatives are there for British players looking elsewhere?
An unlikely alternative may be in
Major League Rugby. The privately financed US league is meant to be expanding, with teams in LA and Dallas supposed to take root next year.
I left my own country to play in Europe, for a new challenge. Unfortunately for hundreds of players right now, they don’t have the luxury of choice. Agents are aware
MLR might be one of the few places looking for rugby players over the next 12 months. With salaries ranging from $35-150k, my gut feel is we will see an influx of British and southern hemisphere talent to the US announced over the next six months.
Unattached players now have a straightforward choice. They can attempt to retrain and look for a ‘real’ job in the worst recession our generation has seen or they can look to America, and the MLR. I know what I would do.
World-class talents like Ma’a Nonu and Tendai Mtawarira have already ventured out there, but the pool is about to get an awful lot bigger. With coaches going in the same direction, the clubs’ standards and infrastructure will also improve.
Covid-19 could therefore kick-start the recruitment drive that MLR has been waiting for. Bad fortune for Super, Gallagher,
Pro and Top 14 rugby could just be the making of an
American revolution.
“Hundreds of players now do not have the luxury of choice”