1
Gloucester prop plugs Northampton injury gap after Champions Cup rules altered
European rugby bosses have altered Champions Cup rules to allow Northampton to sign Gloucester’s Alex Seville and plug their loosehead prop injury gap. Saints were heading to Exeter for Sunday’s quarter-final with rookie teenager Manny Iyogun as their only fit loosehead, with four frontline specialists all out injured.
ADVERTISEMENT
Saints are missing Francois van Wyk, Alex Waller, Danny Hobbs-Awoyemi and Nick Auterac, and feared being forced into uncontested scrums or major safety concerns. But now the European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) board have voted for a permanent rule change, allowing Saints to bring in Seville in time for their Sandy Park trip.
“The EPCR board has unanimously agreed to a change in the tournament rules which permits the registration of front row players after the September 1 deadline,” read an EPCR statement.
“Northampton Saints have registered Alex Seville for the remainder of the Heineken Champions Cup season and Dragons have registered Conor Maguire for the European Rugby Challenge Cup campaign. Both are eligible to play in this weekend’s quarter-finals.”
This European rule shift will doubtless be met with relief by both Northampton and Exeter.
Boyd describes experiment of transferring tightheads to loosehead as "spectacularly unsuccessful" https://t.co/Pma0T63Fl2
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 16, 2020
As late as Wednesday afternoon Saints were still sweating on a decision, with rugby director Chris Boyd explaining: “Francois Van Wyk was our only fit loosehead (before last weekend), and Manny Iyogun would be the only (other) person in our club who could play at loosehead.
“That concerned us because Manny is a 19-year-old boy who played all his football at No8 and had never really played in a men’s scrum before. We approached EPCR about our plight, then the problem got significantly worse because Francois was injured on Sunday (against Leicester and was replaced by Iyogun) and is probably out for eight to 12 weeks.
“We now faced a situation where we have a youngster with zero experience, so we went back to EPCR and pleaded our case again. You eliminate people who can’t come into the country because of Covid restrictions around isolation, and visa applications which can’t be done in time, and the pool of players we could potentially get is pretty small anyway.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Following the ruling, Northampton CEO Mark Darbon said: “We are pleased that EPCR have adopted a sensible approach in today’s ruling. Given the length of time it took for this decision to be made, and the challenge of bringing in new players at this stage of the season, especially with all of the Covid-19 related measures in place, we would like to thank Gloucester who have agreed to loan us their 22-year old loosehead prop on a short-term basis until the end of September.
“Alex will join up with the squad on Friday and will be available for our European Champions Cup quarter-final match on Sunday. We are also grateful to Exeter Chiefs for the pragmatism they have shown in supporting today’s decision.”
We've got a fascinating all-English #HeinekenChampionsCup quarter final in store this weekend ?
Comment below with your score predictions ?
? @ExeterChiefs vs @SaintsRugby
? Sunday 20 September at 17:30 on @btsport pic.twitter.com/fcNaz5HWu3— Investec Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) September 16, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
27 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn 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!😭😭😭 !!!
27 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
27 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.
27 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.
27 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 comments