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Twickenham won't host all 57 of the Premiership's remaining matches

By Chris Jones
(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

English club rugby is targeting a July restart to the suspended Gallagher Premiership season with plans for teams to play two games a week – but Twickenham is not expected to be the sole stadium used for the 57 remaining fixtures.

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RugbyPass understands that the consensus among the Premiership clubs is that a July start following the coronavirus pandemic stoppage would allow the showpiece final to be held on August 15, but this requires the lifting of social distancing measures to allow the games to be rearranged.

One leading Premiership player confirmed that July is central to the discussions currently taking place but denied that Twickenham is the only venue being considered to host matches.

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A newspaper report had claimed that English Rugby HQ would stage all the remaining games as the stadium’s adjacent Marriott hotel was seen as a perfect way to keep the players safe in a controlled environment.

Saracens performance director Phil Morrow told RugbyPass last week that it will take Premiership players a month to regain the required fitness to be ready for the resumption of fixtures. 

The Premiership still needs to complete nine rounds of matches as well as two semi-finals and a final, and Morrow’s restart prediction would mean the month of June being used to get the players up to speed if restrictions are lifted to ensure squads are ready to each play two matches a week in July.

This timeline ties into the RugbyPass report that revealed Sale have asked their South African players currently hunkered down in their home country – including Faf de Klerk and the three du Preez brothers Rob, Dan and Jean-Luc – to return to England in the middle of next month. 

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Meanwhile, the Rugby Players’ Association have reportedly written to its 800 members outlining the five stages of rugby’s return, “all of which will be driven by government policy”. It will begin with individual training and then collective team training.

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Jon 8 hours 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”?

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j
john 11 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.

44 Go to comments
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