Bigger squad sizes are answer to injury crisis
In last weekend’s Sunday Times, Stephen Jones highlighted the injury ‘crisis’ sweeping the professional game. What he failed to offer was constructive suggestion on how the problem might be addressed, beyond the obvious one that players play fewer games.
Let’s start with that one: there will not be less rugby because the demand to see games is high and increasing, and because in England and France the owners need to generate revenue, trying to reduce the amount they’re pouring into their clubs. Similarly, the Unions won’t cut back on international matches, because they generate the cash to keep grassroots going.
The answer is simple: squad sizes need to be bigger, so players can be rested more often. It was good to hear Austin Healey picking up on it on
Rugby Tonight and over the coming months hopefully others will follow. A table published in The
Times showed how many minutes 2017 B&I Lions players have played this season, and surprise, surprise, the top ten names in the list were all English. The Celts prioritise international rugby and the Champions Cup ahead of their league, so they rest their players more. Because of the relegation threat, and the extreme competitiveness of the Premiership, clubs inevitably flog their assets rather more than is ideal.
If squad sizes in the Premiership were increased, coaches would still want to play their best players as often as possible, but a finite limit on matches/minutes played could be imposed, and they’d have to get on with managing within those rules.
That can’t happen today because on occasions clubs have been down to the bare bones in terms of fit players. The clubs would need bigger budgets to fund more players, and it isn’t acceptable to expect the owners to bridge the gap. If it’s correct that too much game time is the reason for the increase in injuries, then the RFU has an incentive to help out in order to give Eddie Jones a stronger squad from which to select.
The quid pro quo for the RFU would be for them to insist on an increase in the number of England-qualified players the clubs have – France shows the danger in recruiting too much from the Southern-Hemisphere, and the damage that can do to the domestic game.
If there can possibly be a positive to take out of this season’s injury tally it’s that a lot of very talented youngsters have had their chance earlier than they might have expected. To pick but one example, injuries to Gloucester’s Ben Morgan and Ross Moriarty meant that youngsters like Freddie Clarke and Jake Polledri got first-team chances, and they took them so well that it wasn’t a given that they’d be dropped when the senior players were fit again, and that’s replicated across the Premiership.
Things never happen quickly in rugby administration, so it’s odds on that we’ll still be talking about this next season, and who knows, by then this season’s casualty list might be shown to have just been a blip? However, I don’t think that will be the case, and if the drive to keep the ball in play for longer continues, things might even be worse.
You have to hope that somewhere in the RFU and PRL thought is being given to finding ways to help the clubs build bigger and even more English squads, with the aim of improving player welfare.
During the week the Six Nations coaches seemed to be trying to outdo each other withprovocative comments – all part of the rough and tumble before the action starts. One of the gems from Warren Gatland was that Owen Williams will be disadvantaged by having to return to Gloucester during the Six Nations fallow weekends.
Williams isn’t captured by the 60-cap rule, as he was already in a Premiership contract, but now Gatland is pressuring him by suggesting that playing his rugby in England might hinder his chances.
Why should any English club ever sign a young Welsh player again? They develop them, but then the player is subjected to pressure to return to Wales, so let the WRU take on the costs from the start, turning themselves into the rugby equivalent of a closed state, allowing their players out only for occasional international and Champions Cup outings.