Will Bath's £100,000-plus signing of Redpath spark a contract buy-out trend in recruitment?
Although Cameron Redpath isn’t a household name in rugby just yet, his move to Bath earlier this week has created plenty of ripples in the professional game.
Not only was it a mid-season move – which is rare in itself – but with Redpath having signed a five-year deal with Sale Sharks fresh out of Sedbergh school in 2018, there was still three-and-a-half years of his deal that Bath had to negotiate a buy-out of.
The inside centre has been highly-touted for a number of years now and after starring for the England U18s side, he was selected to tour South Africa with the seniors the summer he left Sedbergh. His hopes of an early debut were scuppered, however, by an injury that ultimately led to him having to have an ACL reconstruction.
Contract buy-out isn’t unheard of as Mako Vunipola made a similar move from Bristol Bears to Saracens in 2011, although his contract in the south-west was significantly shorter than Redpath’s at Sale which resulted in a much smaller compensation figure.
RugbyPass understands the figure for Redpath’s release to be significantly above £100k. It’s a sizeable sum for Bath to part with and a relatively high figure for rugby union. It shows the faith that the club have in Redpath as a Bath player.
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With clubs beginning to tie down young players on longer term deals, such as Sale did with Redpath, the opportunities for rival clubs to snap up exciting prospects at the end of their contracts will lessen.
Instead of youngsters signing one- or two-year deals and having limited time to prove their worth, a talented player in the second or third year of his five-year deal will be able to negotiate a new contract with his current club months or even years before rival sides are allowed to talk to him.
As such, aggressive clubs who have the salary cap space could more regularly start targeting youngsters at other clubs, particularly those who are struggling to break into their respective senior XVs. In addition to that, the current Premiership salary cap regulations state that transfer fees and/or compensation payments to other clubs do not count towards the salary cap.
English pit-stop through to the end of this seasonhttps://t.co/syygPKdYOO
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At the least, these two factors should put other clubs on notice that teams will become less afraid of taking these kind of risks, particularly if they have an owner or ownership group who are willing to bankroll the moves and are looking for a competitive edge in a salary cap league.
For agents, there’s a win-win scenario here whereby not only do they move a younger player to a new club with the hope that more playing time awaits, they will also likely see that player sign a contract on improved terms from their previous deal.
Agents fees are often at a higher percentage when a player is moving to a new club as opposed to when they are extending their contract at their current one, and though that won’t be decisive for most agents in their decision to encourage their clients to move, it’s a perk that won’t be ignored either.
Bath have captured the highly exciting 20-year-old Cameron Redpath from Sale Sharks pic.twitter.com/diEHgBmXWb
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) February 24, 2020
If the Redpath acquisition proves to be as successful as Saracens’ signing of Vunipola, the chances of this sort of move happening more often in the future are only going to increase, and it will at least encourage clubs to invest accordingly in their talent identification departments.
Clubs can be guilty of becoming locked in on one particular pathway, or perhaps a handful of favoured schools within their academy region, so any development in the game that brings a fresh approach to the process of recruitment and encourages clubs to think outside of the box, is a refreshing one.
WATCH: Officials in the firing line after England’s win over Ireland
Comments on RugbyPass
The Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
3 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
3 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
3 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
30 Go to commentsJe 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
3 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 Crusaders , you can keep going.
3 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!😭😭😭 !!!
30 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
30 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.
30 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 comments