>> Baxter: Longer season can be made to work
EXETER boss Rob Baxter has accused Premiership Rugby bosses of failing to deliver the right messages over season structure changes, fuelling fears of player burnout.
Billy Vunipola, Joe Marler and Christian Day have voiced their concerns over proposals to expand the Premiership season by a month from September to June from 2019-20, with England tours Down Under to follow.
Players union boss Damian Hopley has warned strike action is a possibility. However, Baxter believes moves to slightly lengthen the season are sound and has urged Premiership Rugby to publicly clarify their position.
Baxter, right, said: “The truth is we’re talking about extending the season by two weeks and there’ll be no change in the maximum game-time players are allowed to play, but as clubs and Premiership Rugby we’ve failed to get hold of this.
“The block of international games will be no bigger and in some years there’ll be a reduction in those matches, but it feels like the horse has bolted and everyone’s talking about ten or 11-month seasons when that’s not the case.
“There’s a two-week push-on because some clashes with internationals will be removed and there’ll be opportunities for breaks during the season, but suddenly everyone’s debating the burnout it will cause when the facts are completely different.”
Baxter insists that clubs like Exeter already manage their players year-round and that moves to lengthen the season would be taken into account.
He added: “Even if the season did end up as ten months, there’d be a period in the middle – maybe up to four or five weeks – where players can take time off and we need to get some strong messages out that we’re not expecting more game minutes.
“Good clubs manage their players over 12 months periods anyway, not just from the first game to the last.
“If we have players away on international tours there’s no law saying we have to pick them for the first Premiership game the following season. If the way to manage them is not to pick them, we’ll do it.
“It’s a totally different way of looking at it and the reality is there aren’t many players now who put together three or four unbroken years with only tiny pre-seasons. Lots of guys get rests during the season but we’ve failed properly to explain it.”