The Official English Rugby Thread

[Raggs]

So, where does everyone think Manu is off to? I can think of a club that can probably squeeze him in under the cap, that have just announced the retirement of an iconic, England, centre...

Leicester have also masterfully managed their release policy so well, that they may actually have the pennies to try and tempt over that Fijian/English lad from NZ...

[notfatcat]

Briz or Sarries for Manu, maybe.

For some reason I feel he may turn up at a smaller club, like Falcons, even though I'm sure they can't afford him.

[sockwithaticket]

Saints announcement today that everyone at the club, bar low earners, is taking a 10% pay cut for the next 12 months, replacing the 25% temporary cut since April.

Sounds like they've handled all hs pretty well.

It sounds like there's been lots of communication between the players and senior management tbh

https://www.skysports.com/rugby-union/n ... fends-song

Ludlam was one of 19 players to agree to a contract extension with Northampton on Tuesday, and said it was an easy decision despite the club confirming 12-month salary cuts for players and staff.

Yep it does seem that they've handled this well.

A lawyer's already piped up to say Tuilagi can claim compensation from Leicester, no doubt hoping to be first on the list to take the case, but it goes to show that handling this situation well could prove to be vitally important on many fronts.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/ ... ays-lawyer

Fiscally I doubt many club s are in a position to be fighting cases and potentially paying out and I wouldn't have thought morale would be high at clubs where players feel pressured or duped into staying while long term team mates have been cut adrift.

[Paddington Bear]

Saints announcement today that everyone at the club, bar low earners, is taking a 10% pay cut for the next 12 months, replacing the 25% temporary cut since April.

The low earner threshold being £20,000 will be brutal for a lot of their back office, surely?

[Saint]

Saints announcement today that everyone at the club, bar low earners, is taking a 10% pay cut for the next 12 months, replacing the 25% temporary cut since April.

The low earner threshold being £20,000 will be brutal for a lot of their back office, surely?

I can't see anything listing the lower threshold at Saints being £20K? They just talk about "lower earners" as far as I can see

[Oxbow]

Saints announcement today that everyone at the club, bar low earners, is taking a 10% pay cut for the next 12 months, replacing the 25% temporary cut since April.

The low earner threshold being £20,000 will be brutal for a lot of their back office, surely?

I can't see anything listing the lower threshold at Saints being £20K? They just talk about "lower earners" as far as I can see

The £20,000 was mentioned in the BBC article, but it wasn't in the official club statement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/53251572

[Saint]

The low earner threshold being £20,000 will be brutal for a lot of their back office, surely?

I can't see anything listing the lower threshold at Saints being £20K? They just talk about "lower earners" as far as I can see

The £20,000 was mentioned in the BBC article, but it wasn't in the official club statement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/53251572

Interesting - I wonder if they got that from someone, or if it's mady-uppy? Either way, you would have expected a press report in the local rag at least if there was any unhappiness.

[Margin__Walker]

Times this morning has Sale in talks with Manu. Would definitely be a Dimes type signing.

Where as the Telegraph last night had Manu possibly pulling a u-turn and committing to Leicester.

I guess we'll soon find out.

[Margin__Walker]

Leavers for LI announced today. Well players who would likely have been out the door anyway before all this kicked off. Myler, van der Merwe and Porecki (headed back to Oz) leave the holes there.

Scott Steele
Danny Hobbs-Awoyemi - Northampton
Dave Porecki
Franco van der Merwe
Pat Cilliers
Saia Fainga’a
Stephen Myler
Tom Stephenson
Barney Maddison - Ealing
Bryce Campbell
Alivereti Veitokani
Wil Partington (Academy) - Hartpury
Sam Collingridge (Academy)
Jack Belcher (Academy)
Finlay Rossiter (Academy) - He's a loss. Really promising 7. Was in the Eng U20s squad a year young earlier in the season. Then picked up a second serious injury in two years and looks like he's called it a day to go and study medicine.

Still in negotiations with other players re wage cuts, so fearing a few high profile names will also be added and there's the potential for it to get a bit messy.

[Oxbow]

I wonder where Tom Stephenson will end up now. It's a proper shame his career has been so blighted by injuries, I was tipping him for England back in his early Saints days. Swing and a miss.

[Margin__Walker]

I wonder where Tom Stephenson will end up now. It's a proper shame his career has been so blighted by injuries, I was tipping him for England back in his early Saints days. Swing and a miss.

No idea. Looked great when he did play in the Championship. Just can't seem to get through a season without a significant injury though

If he's fit though he's worth taking a chance on. May be someone for Newcastle to look at.

[Saint]

I wonder where Tom Stephenson will end up now. It's a proper shame his career has been so blighted by injuries, I was tipping him for England back in his early Saints days. Swing and a miss.

No idea. Looked great when he did play in the Championship. Just can't seem to get through a season without a significant injury though

If he's fit though he's worth taking a chance on. May be someone for Newcastle to look at.

I can remember hearing his leg break at Franklin's Gardens during the preseason. Didn't look remotely the same player when he came back from that.

Glad to see Danny returning to his home club - always thought it was a mistake to let him go

[Margin__Walker]

I wonder where Tom Stephenson will end up now. It's a proper shame his career has been so blighted by injuries, I was tipping him for England back in his early Saints days. Swing and a miss.

No idea. Looked great when he did play in the Championship. Just can't seem to get through a season without a significant injury though

If he's fit though he's worth taking a chance on. May be someone for Newcastle to look at.

I can remember hearing his leg break at Franklin's Gardens during the preseason. Didn't look remotely the same player when he came back from that.

Glad to see Danny returning to his home club - always thought it was a mistake to let him go

Stephenson was superb last season until he broke his leg (again)

Not too fussed about losing Danny. He's been decent. Strong in the loose and carries the ball really well. Had a few injuries though and isn't the strongest scrummager.

[JM2K6]

Mike Brown's Daily Mail <spit> article on how clubs are treating players had this nice little footnote.

Sotutu for England?

Watching the Super Rugby Aotearoa games in New Zealand has got me really excited about the return of rugby here.

Hoskins Sotutu, the No 8 at the Blues, has been making a few headlines. He's eligible for England and I think it would be really interesting to explore that.

He's a bit smaller than Billy Vunipola but I think it would be great to have someone who offers an alternative 'Plan B' style. Sotutu is in the Alex Dombrandt mould and he's got a bit of X factor. Apparently Pat Lam is mates with his dad, so let's see if Bristol have any room left in their salary cap!

Amused at his little dig at moneybags Bristol, but I can't help but wonder how many players would be happy with Sotutu becoming an England player. Way too early to tell if he really has the goods anyway, and there's gotta be little chance he'll turn down the ABs.

[Raggs]

I don't have too much sympathy for other players really. If there's better player who's qualified, it's not upto Eddie Jones not to hurt their feelings.

[Un Pilier]

Mike Brown's Daily Mail <spit> article on how clubs are treating players had this nice little footnote.

Sotutu for England?

Watching the Super Rugby Aotearoa games in New Zealand has got me really excited about the return of rugby here.

Hoskins Sotutu, the No 8 at the Blues, has been making a few headlines. He's eligible for England and I think it would be really interesting to explore that.

He's a bit smaller than Billy Vunipola but I think it would be great to have someone who offers an alternative 'Plan B' style. Sotutu is in the Alex Dombrandt mould and he's got a bit of X factor. Apparently Pat Lam is mates with his dad, so let's see if Bristol have any room left in their salary cap!

Amused at his little dig at moneybags Bristol, but I can't help but wonder how many players would be happy with Sotutu becoming an England player. Way too early to tell if he really has the goods anyway, and there's gotta be little chance he'll turn down the ABs.

JM. Pleased to see you here. From what I have seen of him he’s a really exciting prospect who has all or many of the skillz. Yes, it’s early days, and whether he would be quite so effective on a wet February day at the Rec is also an unknown. I’m sure you are right that he’ll want to be an All Black.

[FalconJock]

I wonder where Tom Stephenson will end up now. It's a proper shame his career has been so blighted by injuries, I was tipping him for England back in his early Saints days. Swing and a miss.

No idea. Looked great when he did play in the Championship. Just can't seem to get through a season without a significant injury though

If he's fit though he's worth taking a chance on. May be someone for Newcastle to look at.

Just what we need, another injury prone salary drain on the poorest paying club in the league. We'd be better off bringing Tom Penny back now his Quinns loan has ended

[Margin__Walker]

Ha, fair enough.

He's a lot better than Penny though imo. Don't think he'd cost much either given his record.

[JM2K6]

Mike Brown's Daily Mail <spit> article on how clubs are treating players had this nice little footnote.

Sotutu for England?

Watching the Super Rugby Aotearoa games in New Zealand has got me really excited about the return of rugby here.

Hoskins Sotutu, the No 8 at the Blues, has been making a few headlines. He's eligible for England and I think it would be really interesting to explore that.

He's a bit smaller than Billy Vunipola but I think it would be great to have someone who offers an alternative 'Plan B' style. Sotutu is in the Alex Dombrandt mould and he's got a bit of X factor. Apparently Pat Lam is mates with his dad, so let's see if Bristol have any room left in their salary cap!

Amused at his little dig at moneybags Bristol, but I can't help but wonder how many players would be happy with Sotutu becoming an England player. Way too early to tell if he really has the goods anyway, and there's gotta be little chance he'll turn down the ABs.

JM. Pleased to see you here. From what I have seen of him he’s a really exciting prospect who has all or many of the skillz. Yes, it’s early days, and whether he would be quite so effective on a wet February day at the Rec is also an unknown. I’m sure you are right that he’ll want to be an All Black.

Hello. Thank you. I don't recognise the username though!

He's definitely skilled, but Super Rugby has a habit of making some players look really quite good who aren't necessarily suited to international rugby (Bad Shields!).

Side note for those who've been watching it, what's the reaction to the law focus? I have no idea if this is intended to be a global trial or whatever, but it seems to have had a big impact and not all of it positive.

• There's more continuity
• Defences concede the vast majority of rucks and fan out
• Offside being properly policed is a joy
• "In at the side" is much better policed but still sometimes ignored - I think this is inevitable
• Retaining possession is much easier
• NZ teams seem to not want to pick and go "up the guts" if they're not 5m out, which means defences are allowed to stay wide
• Other laws are routinely ignored, particularly the high tackle laws - immediately back to the bad old days

I appreciate that in this country we have two teams who are relentless with / without the ball - Exeter and Saracens respectively - and that colours how we view "continuity" play and the ability for teams to comfortably defend long periods without the ball. It seems to me we're in danger of losing the ruck as a contest; instead, it's the immediate post-tackle scenario that's the contest. This has been the case for a while really but the new focus really hammers it home. It might just be an artefact of how NZ plays its rugby but I've seen about two counter-rucks in all the matches, and given you can't use your feet effectively to disrupt the ball it's very hard for teams to legally slow down ball at ruck time if the first man isn't getting his hands on the ball.

This seems bad to me; we don't want to encourage the ruck to be about hands on the ball, we want to encourage the contest - counter-rucking, basically - but I think the new focus has exposed the fact that it's a really low percentage play. I still want to see teams hit up close to the ruck to suck in defences and see if that changes things, but I don't think we'll get that from NZ super rugby as it stands.

I know one of the criticisms of Exeter is that they are nowhere near legal a lot of the times when supporting their own attacking rucks, so it's likely to be a change that would hurt them more than a prime defensive team like Saracens, but I still wouldn't want law changes that make everyone play like Exeter.

[Un Pilier]

I have had a username transplant since PR. Good analysis - will comment when have more time.

[Margin__Walker]

10 positive Covid tests from the first round of premiership testing. 6 players and 4 back room staff from 800 odd tests. No confirmation of clubs etc

Seems a slightly higher rater than for football testing, but don't have the figures to hand.

[SaintK]

10 positive Covid tests from the first round of premiership testing. 6 players and 4 back room staff from 800 odd tests. No confirmation of clubs etc

Seems a slightly higher rater than for football testing, but don't have the figures to hand.

Sarries and Quins mentioned

[Oxbow]

10 positive Covid tests from the first round of premiership testing. 6 players and 4 back room staff from 800 odd tests. No confirmation of clubs etc

Seems a slightly higher rater than for football testing, but don't have the figures to hand.

Sarries and Quins mentioned

And an unnamed Saints player according to the BBC.

[Akkerman]

[sockwithaticket]

The people on Genge's twitter feed are going a bit hard, "It's a disgrace etc." or seem to be conflating different organisations all doing this once as the same organisation doing it repeatedly.

That said, there's a point where blaming the stock image company for having mis-labelled photos doesn't really cut it as an excuse and various media companies have to own that some of the staff they have covering rugby are disinterested observers or just flat out know fuck all about it and the people in the game.

[Raggs]

I couldn't actually find an article with this image on. Do we know it's genuine?

[duke]

I couldn't actually find an article with this image on. Do we know it's genuine?

It was on the BT Sport site yesterday but it looks as though they've changed the picture now

[sockwithaticket]

This is it now

https://www.bt.com/sport/news/england-t ... ster-deals

Comments in the twitter thread indicated it had been changed since the original post, but without any acknowledgement of the error.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

So their answer to the problem of thinking all black players look the same was to use a photo just of the white players? Just outstanding not giving a shit from BT

[Margin__Walker]

Leicester statement. Assume their lawyers are comfortable with whatever they've done, but sounds a bit messy from an employment law standpoint (letting players on fixed term contracts go at short notice). But then, what I know about employment law, can probably wrtitten on the back of a fag packet. Perhaps they've been paid off

https://www.leicestertigers.com/news/cl ... ent-200710

Leicester Tigers can confirm that the employment of each of Greg Bateman, Kyle Eastmond, Noel Reid and Manu Tuilagi, as well as Telusa Veainu, who signed with French club Stade Francais earlier this week, has now ended and they will no longer be playing for the club.

The five players were stood down last week after being unable to reach a necessary, amended agreement with the club on their pay, of which all other contracted members of the squad for the period from July 1, 2020, agreed to due to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Leicester Tigers.

Jordan Taufua, who was afforded an extended period of consultation after being quarantined following his return to Leicester from New Zealand, is still in conversations with the club.

In line with club policy and out of respect to Taufua regarding this confidential matter, Tigers will not comment on these ongoing discussions.

[Raggs]

Manu's destination will be interesting. Bateman is handy too. Eastmond I could imagine going overseas.

[Margin__Walker]

Guess for Manu it's overseas, or perhaps Sale (he seems like a Diamond sort of signing)

[SaintK]

Guess for Manu it's overseas, or perhaps Sale (he seems like a Diamond sort of signing)

Diamond denying any contact with Manu...........so could well be Sale!

Steve Diamond, the Sale Sharks director of rugby, has denied opening talks with Leicester’s Manu Tuilagi, but revealed the club does have room in their salary cap for the England centre.

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/diamond ... -tuilagi/

[Margin__Walker]

Ha, was going to say. You could write a book on Diamond's denials and subsequent signings

To be fair, cap space is going to be a big issue here for most clubs. It's late in the day for it, especially with a drop in cap approaching for 21/22. So it may end up being overseas or bust.

[Raggs]

If we're getting mid-week games, that's going to mean a lot of games in a short period of time for players. Squad depth will be tested, some squads look barely/inadequate for a regular schedule at this point...

[Margin__Walker]

If we're getting mid-week games, that's going to mean a lot of games in a short period of time for players. Squad depth will be tested, some squads look barely/inadequate for a regular schedule at this point...

For sure

On the plus side, there's no relegation at stake and with tight turnarounds and smaller squads we are likely to see more senior academy lad getting opportunities than normal.

Fixtures to be announced this afternoon I think

[Raggs]

If we're getting mid-week games, that's going to mean a lot of games in a short period of time for players. Squad depth will be tested, some squads look barely/inadequate for a regular schedule at this point...

For sure

On the plus side, there's no relegation at stake and with tight turnarounds and smaller squads we are likely to see more senior academy lad getting opportunities than normal.

Fixtures to be announced this afternoon I think

There's still top 6 for european qualification. And of course top 4.

[Margin__Walker]

Sure, would still expect teams to be picking deeper into their squads for Prem games come Aug/Sept though

[sockwithaticket]

Guess for Manu it's overseas, or perhaps Sale (he seems like a Diamond sort of signing)

Diamond denying any contact with Manu...........so could well be Sale!

Steve Diamond, the Sale Sharks director of rugby, has denied opening talks with Leicester’s Manu Tuilagi, but revealed the club does have room in their salary cap for the England centre.

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/diamond ... -tuilagi/

Since being cashed up Sale always seem to have cap room. If I were one of their longer standing or more promising players I'd be asking my agent to squeeze a bit more out of Dimes. Easier said than done, I'm sure.

[Margin__Walker]

First tranche of fixtures. Complete with terrible formatting and midweek games. Home game venue of LI is very much TBC