Young should seek advice from Chiefs on squad size
Wasps boss Dai Young commented during the week that his options for forthcoming games are limited because his squad is down to the bare bones. He went on to say that the salary cap limit is restricting the size of Wasps’ squad, with 40 players his season, dropping to 39 for 2018-19.
In a week when Saracens’ South African investors called time, and Bath’s losses increased, predominantly as a result of a bigger wage bill, Young’s comments give food for thought.
We seem to have made progress in ensuring clubs manage within the cap, but the time has surely come to move away from simply setting a number. I’ve been banging on for a while about the need to set minimum squad sizes, and the Wasps situation adds fuel to that fire.
To an outsider, the reason Wasps have such a small squad is because they have too many expensive players. If you’ve got a fixed budget, ignoring the ‘marquee’ players who sit outside of the cap, then you make a choice – at its simplest level it’s just like any household: if you’ve got £100 to spend, you could buy 10 items at £10 each, or 5 at £20. Wasps could have decided to have more, but cheaper, players, but they didn’t go down that route, and now injuries are hurting them.
Whichever club you support, you’ll want their squad to be as strong as possible, and we all love seeing big-name signings and ‘marquee’ players. The owners’ egos demand success, both in the Premiership and in Europe, so they too want to go for world-class talent. However, we’re now dangerously close to reaching breaking point, and it’s time to set some rules regarding recruitment.
We need to set a minimum squad size and the clubs need to manage within that. Exeter show 56 players on their website, and they seem to manage successfully within the cap.
Denny Solomona has been banned for four weeks for making homophobic remarks during the Sale v Worcester Premiership match. The panel accepted that the remarks weren’t premeditated, and were made in the heat of the moment, but does that really matter?
The fact is that the remarks were made and were unacceptable, but surely the aim of the punishment should be to make sure the player learns a lesson and doesn’t do it again? Bans certainly give some time to reflect, but are they really the best way of dealing with this? Mathieu Bastareaud got three weeks, Solomona four, and we still wait to find out what sanction, if any, Israel Folau will receive for his recent message on social media that gays would be condemned to “hell” unless they “repent” for their sins.
Three public examples indicate that there’s a problem out there, and I’d far rather see something constructive done to address the problem, rather than simply banning a player. It might be workshops, mandatory counselling, a long chat with Gareth Thomas, or what about requiring the player to do coaching sessions with one of the clubs affiliated with International Gay Rugby?
The Champions Cup quarter-final between Leinster and Saracens conclusively outshone anything that the Six Nations had to offer. Before the game Stuart Lancaster said that it would be right up there with international rugby, and he got it wrong – it was much better. There were, however, a couple of things which jarred during and after the game.
I like the system where the captain is the only player allowed to speak to the referee, but Jerome Garces allowed a free-forall with every Leinster player seemingly allowed to whinge about anything that sprang to mind.
The whingeing continued after the match with the usual bleating in the press about Johnny Sexton supposedly being targeted. Let’s get this absolutely straight: stand-offs are the guys who pull the strings, and they’re always going to be a target – that’s the way rugby works. The referee and his assistants are there to ensure that the targeting is within the laws, and the game has never been more rigorously policed than it is today.