Northampton Saints' Archie McParland set for crunch talks over club future

Northampton Saints scrum-half Archie McParland is set to have crunch talks about his future with the Gallagher Prem champions after entering the final year of his contract.

Saints have started to tie down their players who are out of contract at the end of the forthcoming season and have already made England star Tommy Freeman the highest-paid winger in the league.

They are also set to meet with McParland’s Stowe School team-mate Henry Pollock’s advisors to try to thrash out a new deal that won’t be cheap, even though it is likely to fall short of the headline-grabbing £1 million that his commercial advisor, Eddie Hearn, thinks he is worth.

McParland, 21, became the youngest player in the professional era to play for Saints’ first team when he played at the age of 17 years and 222 days against London Irish in the Premiership Rugby Cup four years ago.

The England A international has a major decision to make as he is unlikely to become their first-choice nine in the immediate future after Lions star Alex Mitchell, who signed a new long-term deal at the start of last season, getting the nod when he is fit.

Along with Saracens’ Charlie Bracken and Harlequins’ Lucas Friday, they are all young scrum-halves pushing England coach Steve Borthwick for inclusion in his senior squad.

It is a position where a fair bit of recruitment took place ahead of this season, with Tomas Williams moving to Saracens, Gloucester landing Dan Robson, and Raffi Quirke swapping Sale Sharks for Newcastle Red Bulls.

The Sharks replaced Quirke with Xavier Roe and Exeter Chiefs gave Italian international Stephen Varney a new deal after an impressive first season in Devon following a stint in France with Vannes.

The one chink of light could be that Bath might be looking for someone, depending on how their talks with Ben Spencer go, who is also in the final year of his deal.

McParland has Jonny Weimann, who is very highly rated, pushing for regular match action, and he is believed to be weighing up his options, possibly deciding to take the George Furbank route and move on.