Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
NZ NZ

'It doesn't give us a competitive team': Sale fear French red tape

By Liam Heagney
(Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Sale boss Alex Sanderson fears his Gallagher Premiership team could have their European hopes dashed by French government red tape. Numerous round two fixtures between English and French clubs were postponed last month due to tightened pandemic restrictions and with Sale now due to play in Clermont on January 16 in round three, Sanderson is worried that his squad’s South African contingent and other players who haven’t had a double jab vaccine won’t be allowed to travel. 

ADVERTISEMENT

According to Sanderson, the feedback from an EPCR committee meeting on Tuesday was that the round three fixtures schedule was set to still go ahead as planned but no assurances were given that the likes of Sale would be able to travel at full strength due to potential Schengen visa and vaccination issues.  

Currently, travel to France is restricted to essential only and those who travel must be double jabbed. It’s a situation that has left Sanderson fearing that the group phase in this year’s Champions Cup won’t now be completed, especially as there is already no room in the schedule to accommodate last month’s postponed games which include the visit of Clermont to Sale who started the tournament with an away win at Ospreys.  

Video Spacer

Joyeux Noel & The European Dilemma | Le French Rugby Podcast | Episode 11

Benji’s back to tell us about his try-scoring exploits in Dubai, Johnnie’s navigated travel chaos to make it home for Christmas and we look back on a weekend where politics played its part and Castres were the only French side in action in the Champions Cup. We assess whether the whole of Round 2 should have been postponed as the Top 14 sides wanted, whether there’s going to be an asterisk by the name of the winner once more and what’s next for European rugby this season. Plus, there’s some hot coaching gossip and we pick our MEATER Moment of the Week…
Use the code FRENCHPOD10 at checkout for 10% off any full price item at Meater.com

Video Spacer

Joyeux Noel & The European Dilemma | Le French Rugby Podcast | Episode 11

Benji’s back to tell us about his try-scoring exploits in Dubai, Johnnie’s navigated travel chaos to make it home for Christmas and we look back on a weekend where politics played its part and Castres were the only French side in action in the Champions Cup. We assess whether the whole of Round 2 should have been postponed as the Top 14 sides wanted, whether there’s going to be an asterisk by the name of the winner once more and what’s next for European rugby this season. Plus, there’s some hot coaching gossip and we pick our MEATER Moment of the Week…
Use the code FRENCHPOD10 at checkout for 10% off any full price item at Meater.com

“It’s a high degree of uncertainty that it [Sale’s trip to France] will happen but I 110 per cent want it to happen and we have already started the planning process around how we build our game up,” explained Sanderson at a Tuesday evening Sale media briefing. “We just tell them [the players] that it is on and it is to all intents and purposes – we have been told it is going ahead but all these circumstances surrounding its ability to go ahead are still at the moment very hazy and speculative.

“There is a certain type of visa that you get if you are South African which has to be approved via French customs, government or whatever, and they have restricted travel (for everyone) to essential only. They would have to fast-track and approve these Schengen visas in record time. Apparently, it is only a stamp but I don’t know, it’s out of hands entirely and in the lap of European rugby and their ability to push it through and the French government then to approve it. It has got to go through a few hoops first.”

The match going ahead with Sale not being allowed to field their full squad would be a major headache for Sanderson. “It doesn’t give us a competitive team. Nine of our squad wouldn’t be approved and that isn’t including those lads who haven’t been double jabbed of which there is one or two and we are not the only ones. We [English teams] are all in a similar boat here.

“The focus is on this weekend (away to Bristol in the Premiership on Friday) but you have hotels to book and visas to push through and the EPCR met today as a committee to resolve the question of whether or not the games will be on. Right now, the answer is yes, the games are on. 

ADVERTISEMENT

“Just from our point of view quite, how they are going to get the Schengen visas through for next week I don’t know. It is going to go through levels of government which is quite high up the echelon. Usually, other sport bubbles follow the football but because the football is in February, they [EPCR] are having to carve their own path as to what is going to be allowed from the French government. 

“I 100 per cent want it to be on. Players are not rugby trainers but we can’t field a competitive side without picking our South African players and bringing them into France. Can’t field one but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Last season’s pool section of the Champions Cup was scrapped, resulting in organisers restarting in late spring with a round-of-16 knockout format. The plan for this campaign was to play four rounds of pool matches before a round-of-16 knockout but with that schedule now doubtful, Sanderson is curious what the EPCR might come up with as their Plan B if required.

“Doomed is a big word. If I say yes (the Champions Cup is doomed), that will come up as a title. It has happened before: ‘Sanderson thinks Europe is doomed’. So I am not going to say doomed but I do think it is in trouble and it is not its own fault. We have had to deal internally with Covid and all the issues and curveballs that come up with it – we missed the Newcastle game just a few weeks back. 

ADVERTISEMENT

“But there is no space in the season to reschedule these games. There is none so how do you continue with the tournament in its own structure? I can’t say you can. If we can’t field our best team to go to France and then/or that game isn’t played potentially because it is still slightly up in the air, I can’t see how you can continue with the format. 

“So they will have to come up with something interesting but that is well above my pay grade how to devise the ways and means for the best teams to play in Europe but certainly we want to do it, we want to play the best teams.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Join free

Aotearoa Rugby Podcast | Episode 6

Sam Warburton | The Big Jim Show | Full Episode

Japan Rugby League One | Sungoliath v Eagles | Full Match Replay

Japan Rugby League One | Spears v Wild Knights | Full Match Replay

Boks Office | Episode 10 | Six Nations Final Round Review

Aotearoa Rugby Podcast | How can New Zealand rugby beat this Ireland team

Beyond 80 | Episode 5

Rugby Europe Men's Championship Final | Georgia v Portugal | Full Match Replay

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
Jon 12 minutes ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

30 Go to comments
j
john 2 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

15 Go to comments
A
Adrian 4 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

15 Go to comments
T
Trevor 7 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

21 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING England No8 Sarah Beckett banned after leg-breaking croc roll tackle England No8 Sarah Beckett banned after leg-breaking croc roll tackle
Search