Townsend's 'concern' over player access ahead of World Cup as row rumbles on
Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend says he’s worried about the ongoing row between Premiership Rugby Limited and World Rugby over the release of players because of insurance issues.
As it stands Gallagher Premiership players will be prevented from joining up with their national team squads until mid-August, with England being the exception because of the £220m Professional Game Agreement between the PRL and the RFU which was signed in 2016.
That could mean teams would only have their full compliment of players 35 days before the opening game of the Rugby World Cup, which is on September 20th when hosts Japan face Russia in Pool A.
Among those who could be most affected are Scotland, who face what could be a Pool A decider against Ireland in their opening match, on Sunday 22nd. The runners-up in Pool A have to face the Pool B winners in the quarter-finals, with the All Blacks favourites to claim top spot in Pool B.
Gregor Townsend had nine Premiership players in his Autumn international squad, while there are seven in his 39-man Six Nations squad – Newcastle Falcons trio Gary Graham and John Hardie and Chris Harris, Jake Kerr (Leicester Tigers) Sam Skinner (Exeter Chiefs), Josh Strauss (Sale Sharks) and Sean Maitland (Saracens). Full back Stuart Hogg is also due to join Exeter Chiefs this summer, albeit he may have a release clause in his contract. Ireland on the other hand only use players under their central contract system and will have far longer to prepare.
Last month RugbyPass exclusively revealed that England’s top clubs are paying 20 overseas players more than £350,000 a season which has triggered legal action being taken against World Rugby.
Unlimited cover is in place in football, on the last four British and Irish Lions tours and for those Premiership players chosen for the Barbarians. Premiership Rugby wants that replicated for all nations with World Rugby picking up the bill, not the individual countries.
Speaking to RugbyPass at the Six Nations launch Gregor Townsend urged a solution to be found as soon as possible.
“It’s a concern until it gets sorted, so obviously I’d encourage the PRL, World Rugby to come up with a solution pretty quickly,” he said.
“We are affected, like Italy are, in the Six Nations and we have players playing outside our country more than Wales and obviously England and Ireland pick players from their countries. So this year it is already a challenge for us during the Six Nations as we can only have players training for three days and players going back to play for their clubs.
“But the World Cup when there is no club games we want to be on the same footing as every team and have a proper preparation going into that. And I know there are other countries like Fiji and Samoa that will be affected.”
“The sooner we get a resolution to that, we can prepare to play our best ever rugby in a World Cup, which is getting more and more prepared ahead of each tournament.”
Asked whether having just two professional teams in Scotland was proving detrimental Townsend said: “It’s a challenge. You can only work with either the player numbers or the finance to have competitive teams. We’ve found a balance of two teams and those two teams have never played as well. We’ve got two teams for the first time in the knockout stage of the Champions Cup, so it seems that the model for producing really good performances in Scotland at a pro level is working.
“On the other side it means that some players play outside Scotland, which makes bringing them together and managing players to play well at international rugby make it tougher than what Ireland face for example.”
Watch: Sergio Parisse, Greig Laidlaw and Guilhem Guirado speak to RugbyPass
Comments on RugbyPass
Je 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!😭😭😭 !!!
25 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
25 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.
25 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.
25 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 comments