Rugby players’ salaries

SIR – Any rugby team with a strong academy creating a conveyor belt of English qualified players will find themselves losing those players as they mature, command higher remuneration and come up against the salary cap.

This can be easily solved. The cap should apply only to those players who have been brought in from outside a club’s own academy – usually marquee foreign players. Academy-grown players should remain outside that cap until they leave the club that developed them.

Clubs will be able to invest in young talent, England will benefit from a strong conveyor belt and a cap will remain to stop teams hiring an all-star team from abroad. Ronald Hepburn London SW1

SIR – Daniel Schofield’s article (Sport, January 19) refers to Saracens’ star players “slumming it in English rugby’s second tier against Hartpury College” next season.

In fact Hartpury has produced over 300 students who have gone on to represent their country playing rugby at international level – the most recent being Louis Rees-Zammit, who has been called up to the Welsh squad, and Alex Craig for Scotland. There are currently a similar number of Hartpury alumni playing in the Premiership and the Pro 14. Over the last three years, Hartpury has played home matches against Bristol, London Irish and more recently Newcastle in the Championship, and in 2018 Hartpury hosted a World Rugby International where Fiji played Uruguay.

When it is Saracens’ turn to visit Hartpury, they will be afforded the hospitality which we offer to all our visiting teams and guest supporters. Russell Marchant

Vice-Chancellor, Principal and CEO, Hartpury University and Hartpury College

Gloucester