Are Saracens harshly treated for retaining their own or too cavalier in their recruitment?
There is nothing like social media to polarise debate and bring out extreme arguments without nuance. The salary cap scandal at Saracens is no different.
At one end of the spectrum, you have those who are extremely critical of the club and cite their spending on big-name signings as the reason for their success. At the other you have those who would defend the club, insisting they were simply re-signing the talents they had developed from their own pathway.
As ever, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle and the two arguments aren’t necessarily exclusive.
Back in August, RugbyPass looked at the percentage of Gallagher Premiership squads that were homegrown. With an impressive 57.9 per cent of their professional squad having come through the club’s junior academy, Saracens were the number one ranked side in the competition. In addition to that, their total of 48 academy graduates in the entire competition was second only to Leicester Tigers’ mark of 50.
This is not to excuse Saracens’ actions in relation to the salary cap, as ensuring competitiveness across the board is one of the main aims of a cap. It is a dilemma confronted by most successful teams in a salary-capped league – is this player so invaluable that we must retain him or is he not as vital and therefore can be released?
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Saracens didn’t engage with this puzzle as frequently as they should have, but their approach does add credence to the argument that the club were merely extending deals of the players they had developed and that the productivity of their academy and player pathway shouldn’t be a cause for punishment.
That said, were it not for extravagant senior recruitment the homegrown talent could have been retained without breaking the cap. If you look at Saracens’ intake of senior players during the three seasons they were found guilty of breaking the cap, there is no shortage of recruited talent.
In that first season, Vincent Koch and Schalk Burger arrived from South Africa, Scotland international Sean Maitland made the move south and Alex Lozowski upped sticks from Wasps. The following year Liam Williams, Christopher Tolofua and Will Skelton all arrived before a much quieter summer in 2018.
Finally, Elliot Daly and former academy product Jack Singleton both signed with the club in 2019. Of course, there were significant outgoings which mitigate that list, although seemingly not so significant as to have created the cap room for the new arrivals and the improved terms that the club’s own homegrown contingent had earned.
Just as the two arguments around the club’s breaches of the cap aren’t exclusive of one another, neither is the influence that the senior recruitment has had on the club’s productivity at the academy level.
Saracens are among the very best in the world at producing talented young players and integrating them into senior rugby. Integrating them into a star-studded senior side that is winning and can regularly be rotated with little drop in quality or results is far more preferable to throwing them in at the deep end in a team that is struggling.
EXCLUSIVE
New Saracens CEO Edward Griffiths tells @chrisjonespress that the club want to set right their finances ahead of deadlinehttps://t.co/vFGj6rE42F
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 6, 2020
If that logic holds weight, then it arguably diminishes the success their academy has had over the last four years, as those prospects have been put into a positive situation that other clubs have not been able to legally replicate.
With interim CEO Edward Griffiths admitting that players will need to be released and/or accept reduced financial terms if the club are to be within guidelines for this season, there is an intriguing period on the horizon as to whether or not the club can maintain their recent standards in their academy.
The club’s academy isn’t just productive in terms of quantity, it also pumps out quality players, many of whom, such as Ben Earl or Nick Isiekwe, are involved with England almost as soon as they are involved with the Saracens first team.
With the squad set to be reduced in size and/or players of a lower quality targeted in the future, can the club keep up this production line of homegrown talent?
If, as a rugby fan, you can draw a line under Saracens’ salary cap breaches and accept that the 35-point deduction and £5.4million fine was sufficient, then this is a particularly interesting time in the club’s history for all neutral observers.
They have a long way to go if they are to earn back the trust they have lost, but if Saracens can maintain that pipeline of talent to the England team, rival fans will – slowly but surely – begin to forget, if not forgive.
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Comments on RugbyPass
We’re building a bridge but can't agree where the river is.
2 Go to commentsfirst no arms shoulder or helmet tackle into his rib cage is going to be so very painful even to watch. go back to RU mate.
1 Go to commentsBulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to comments