English rugby's top players will need 'four weeks'
Phil Morrow has revealed English rugby’s top players will need four weeks to be ready for the resumption of the Gallagher Premiership season. The highly-rated Saracens performance director sits on an advisory group for Premiership Rugby and is predicting it will take that length of carefully managed return-to-play training to get the reigning English and European champions up to speed even though the squad are following individual programmes which may not include their own weights sessions at home.
While second-tier rugby and a break-up of the squad will happen next season for Saracens after being found guilty of salary cap breaches, completing the current campaign – including trying to retain their Heineken title and getting their players ready for what could be a hectic international calendar in the final months of 2020 – is shaping the fitness planning devised by Morrow and his team.
Morrow was previously head of strength and conditioning at Ulster before becoming the IRFU’s high-performance fitness manager. He also toured New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions in 2017 which enhanced his position as one of the sport’s leading authorities on this key aspect of rugby.
He is now working closely with his strength and conditioning team at Saracens, getting the players mentally and physically ready for the resumption of the season. Saracens have been working to maintain the front row club meetings via social media along with virtual parties to maintain team spirits.
Keeping fit with restricted training aids is a challenge for every player around the rugby world, but Morrow is confident lost ground can be made up to allow players to be match ready once full-time training is re-introduced. He explained: “In a normal off-season by week five we would generally have the guys back to where they were before they finished the previous season.
“Generally their strength and muscle mass will be close to where it was at the end of the season. What we are a little unsure about is what will the first training week back will look like. In German football they have been allowed back in small groups as long as they are symptom-free and if that was the case then it would be different.
“We are looking at players regaining a level of strength to ensure it is safe for them to go into contact and make tackles and that should be able to be picked up four weeks before the re-start of the season. Everything is a stepped approach. It won’t be four weeks of strength work and them boom, straight into contact.
“Once we are back they can do one-on-one scrum work and then it can be two on two followed by the scrum machine so that specific strength work is in tandem with the other work over the four week period.
“Generally players’ running capacity will be pretty decent because you can only play so much PlayStation and Xbox. Even the front row boys know that when you don’t do your running you don’t feel great even doing it individually. We have given all of our players sessions – some old school – to follow with hill sessions and have told them, for example, where there are hills around St Albans. They have been running three or four times a week and we have kept talking to the players to show we care and check what their weight is and how they found the sessions.
“You can still do speed work which ticks those boxes while the big focus will be how to regain strength and power. Some of the lads have weight training equipment but we aren’t like the NFL in America where central funding meant each player got $1,500 of equipment.
“The players who do have weights will be at a different level to those who have been doing bodyweight circuits which are grand and you can slow the decline of muscle mass wastage and strength loss. That is all you are doing because you cannot hold onto it unless you have equipment.
“How quickly you regain that strength comes down to genetic profile so if you’re a Billy Vunipola you can build muscle quicker and when he comes back from injury he can get his strength back quicker than other players.”
One major plus for England and Saracens during this period is that Vunipola will be ready to return to action with the rest of the sport and could help the reigning Heineken Cup champions in their delayed quarter-final with Leinster in Dublin.
Dr now showing his good side https://t.co/ukv0te281Y
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Saracens were unsure of when Vunipola would return from his fourth broken arm but the suspension of the Gallagher Premiership, which is unlikely to start until the summer, has allowed the powerful No8 to fully recover from his latest injury set back.
Vunipola broke his arm against Racing 92 in January and Morrow said: “Billy will be right by the summer and that will have been 20 something weeks and his arm would be Ok. One of the breaks didn’t get plated and he wasn’t keen on surgery and we always support the player when it is a 50-50 call.
“Billy has just been unlucky with his injuries and no matter how hard we try and prevent injuries we haven’t been able to do that. The physios have been doing Zoom rehab sessions for the players at home so guys like Billy, Alex Lozowski (ankle) and Max Malins (foot) have continued their programmes. They will be in a good enough shape when we need them.”
In a normal season, Morrow would have been planning for the Heineken Cup quarter-finals with the international players having been given a break following the final Saturday of Six Nations championship. “Post-Six Nations we would have had Bristol and then Harlequins at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium followed by Leinster in the European Cup. All those plans are now worthless and we are now in a holding pattern. But I believe everyone will be sensible once we start back.”
Comments on RugbyPass
An on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
24 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
24 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
24 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
24 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
11 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to comments