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'Yes, we don't have the same budget as other teams but...'
Thriving Leicester boss Steve Borthwick has insisted it doesn’t concern him that the reduced Gallagher Premiership £5million salary cap makes it increasingly hard to compete with French and Celtic rivals, adding that he also isn’t envious of other clubs in England that have far more financial clout than the Tigers.
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Leicester were considered a fallen giant that would take years of great patience to turn around following consecutive eleventh place finishes in the Premiership and the loss of their cherished status as a Heineken Champions Cup team. Legendary back-rower Neil Back claimed as much in an interview with RugbyPass, stating: “The time was right for Borthwick with the coaching experience he has gathered over the years – he is a good fit.
“He has come in and has made everyone at Leicester, including the supporters, be brutally honest about where they were when he came in because there was a lot of heads in the sand. He made everyone understand we are not that great team that once was, this is where we are and then he gave a vision of where he wants to be and, most importantly, how are we going to get there.
“Now you can’t do it on your own, so he has put in the right leadership management, saying the right things and they have got a strategy to get there and he is being realistic… But it’s not going to be overnight. It’s going to be two or three years to get to a point, probably five years until we are anywhere near competing at that top table.”
However, the first full Borthwick season in charge at Leicester laid an encouraging foundation, overhauling the playing roster and strengthening the backroom staff in a campaign that resulted in a sixth-place league finish, a runners-up spot in the Challenge Cup final and qualification for this season’s Champions Cup.
"He'll need a magic wand to get out of that…"
– Harry Potter incredibly disappeared from view over a wall just 117 seconds after he celebrated scoring a try for Leicester in Bordeaux#Leicester #HeinekenChampionsCup #BORvLEIhttps://t.co/zySeeDfrWq
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) December 14, 2021
It was evidence that Leicester could potentially compete with better-resourced rivals, not only in England where the reduced salary cap has made life more difficult but also in Europe. Recent months have demonstrated this exact point, the Tigers winning their opening nine league matches to lead the table from Saracens and that form was brought into Europe last weekend with an impressive away win over Bordeaux, the big-spending Top 14 leaders who were Champions Cup semi-finals last May.
Asked about the salary cap and added challenge it creates for a club like Leicester that has been carefully watching its bottom line in recent years, Borthwick said: “I absolutely understand the question but with all respect, I actually don’t give it a second thought because I can’t do anything about it.
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“I tend to put my energy into things I can do stuff about and that [the salary cap] is nothing I can do something about. I need to coach this team as well as I can and I need to coach the team from the people who have got 112 caps like Ben (Youngs) to the players who are just coming out of the academy and all those in between – I need to coach them as well as I can and we need to be as smart as we can with the resources we have.
“Other clubs in England have better resources than us, never mind Europe. I can’t do anything about it so I don’t spend too much time thinking about it.
“That is a constant, how do you manage these resources as well as possible? The stance I take is these are the resources we have got, how can we maximise every little bit of it. That is the attitude I take to it. Yes, we don’t have the same budget as other teams but how do we maximise what we have got?
“So that is a consideration in every decision we make, how do we squeeze every bit we can out of what we have got? That does factor into decisions about the academy, about how we bring players through. It factors into decisions around recruitment and retention because there is no doubt that players are offered more money to go and play elsewhere. Then it comes to how can we run the best programme possible.”
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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.
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