English Clubs restricting RWC preparation for non English test players

[Gnostic]

This just re-enforces my views that no Non Oz based players should ever be considered for Wallabies duties.

Apart from the fact that no player has ever returned from the NH playing as good as when they left for the Euro, the fact is that the seasons are different and the players first call is their club, not the country.

England's Premier Rugby club competition has been accused of sabotaging next year's World Cup in New Zealand.

Wales coach and former All Black Warren Gatland is leading a chorus of protest against the English club administrators following a provocative move to delay release of players ahead of the global tournament.

Gatland said the World Cup prospects of nations of nations such as Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga will be significantly undermined if the International Rugby Board did not pull the English clubs into line.

Premier Rugby has written to national unions refusing to release any non-England internationals contracted to English Premiership clubs until the statutory 35 days before the World Cupstarts.

The letter has caused anger and the IRB has been called upon to act.

Gatland, who just resigned with Wales until the end of the 2015 World Cup, branded the move as unacceptable and said unless common sense prevailed, players from those clubs would not be selected to go to New Zealand.

Wales's first warm-up match before the World Cup is against England on August 6, two days after non-English players will be released by Premiership clubs.

Premier Rugby's letter to the national unions pointed out when it is obliged to release players. The angry response to the letter has prompted Martyn Thomas, the England Rugby Football Union management board chairman, to intervene on behalf of Wales, Ireland and Scotland by meeting Mark McCafferty, the chief executive of Premier Rugby, this week.

McCafferty told the Guardian newspaper that Premier Rugby was prepared to compromise, but only if the issue was dealt with not in isolation but as part of a discussion with the IRB on a range of issues governing the release of players, including the proliferation of unofficial Tests and concerns that players are not properly insured on international duty.

Under IRB regulations, clubs are not obliged to release players to join their countries to prepare for the World Cup until August 4. Premier Rugby's policy, which was unanimously agreed by the 12 clubs, is never to release non-English players outside the stipulated IRB window.

England players are released outside the windows under a deal struck with the (England) Rugby Football Union, which pays about 150,000 pounds per player for the privilege. France's Top 14 has taken a similarly hardline stance to Premier Rugby.

Gatland has named a 33-man squad for next month's four internationals in Cardiff, including one against the All Blacks, and did not include a single player who earns his living outside Wales. The Sale scrum-half Dwayne Peel and the Wasps No8 Andy Powell were the main casualties. Scotland have nine Test players contracted to Premiership clubs.

"The concern with Peel and Powell primarily was that they would not be available for our first international against Australia as it falls outside the official window," Gatland told the Guardian.

"The other issue was the letter we had from Premier Rugby saying its players will not be released for the World Cup until 4 August. It will severely limit the preparation time of players based in England and puts a question mark over whether they will go to the World Cup. If they are not made earlier, it is very unlikely they will be considered for the squad.
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"No one has had much success changing Premier Rugby's stance on the issue of release. It should be about common sense, but that is not always the case in modern professional sport.

"Premier Rugby's stand is unacceptable and ridiculous. It is not in the spirit of the game. I am disappointed not so much with the politics but with some players being denied the chance to go to the World Cup. The people making these decisions have clearly not played international rugby.''

Gatland pointed out that Powell's contract with Wasps ended in May, which would allow him to attend the July training camp. That would be the same with Gavin Henson, if Ospreys grant the centre his wish to join a London club for the rest of this season with a view to rejoining the region in the summer.

The Scottish Rugby Union wants the IRB to intervene.

"We have some concerns and need clarity,'' said a spokesman. ''It comes down to the importance of the World Cup. Unions want to make sure that it is seen as the pinnacle of the sport's calendar and we are looking for leadership from the Board."

Thomas said he had written to the Celtic unions. "I will be arranging a meeting with Mark McCafferty as a matter of urgency," he said. "We cannot force Premier Rugby to release players but we can find out what they would like. I suspect, though, that this is an issue of principle, not money."

A number of World Cup countries are affected by the policy, including Italy, the United States and the South Seas islands.

"Tier two nations are being significantly disadvantaged because their players have to go abroad to earn their livings," said the Welsh Rugby Union chief executive, Roger Lewis. "Clubs in certain countries have taken advantage of these players and are not respecting the powerful, emotional pull of an international jersey.

"We are not going to be blackmailed or held to ransom by English clubs. It is the responsibility of the RFU to ensure the game in England is run in the best interests of all."

The Guardian reported that the IRB is maintaining a watching brief and would only become involved if the RFU got nowhere with Premier Rugby.

"Too much is being made of this," said McCafferty. "All we did was to write to unions pointing out what the IRB's official release dates were.

"I am sure we can reach an accommodation over releasing players for World Cup duty before 4 August, but we have been asking for a meeting with the board for a long time to discuss the regulation governing release of players as a whole.

"We are not being unreasonable and all we are asking is that the interests of clubs are considered, not just unions, because too much is being asked of players."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/rugby-world-cup/4250849/English-clubs-threaten-2011-World-Cup

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Thin end of the wedge. Who pays the piper calls the tune.

A slippery little slope we started upon when the game went openly professional, and the clubs started becoming the main revenue earner.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

It's symptomatic of the way the game is run in the North. Without the central contract system, the clubs will just ride roughshod over the unions. I like the setup we have here and agree with Gnostic that it's a compelling reason (one of many) to only select players for the Wallabies who have played in the S14/15. I think we could open it up to any Aussies who might in the future play for non-Australian franchises, but that would be about the limit.

 

[TOCC]

Both systems have there pros and cons

 

[Jnor]

Priority should lie with national duties. End of.

 

[en_force_er]

It's the IRBs fault for setting a 35 minimum. Of course the clubs will want full value for their buck, you can't blame them.

Learn from it and extend the minimum for next WC.

 

[Hawko]

Both systems have there pros and cons

Not having central contracts has few pro's and the con's are self evident. The chief con is that playing for country is subservient to playing for club, and that's just prima facie wrong.

 

[farva]

There is the international window, which means that players will always be available for the international teams.

And as long as the premier game is the international, which it is, we will continue to see players representing their country - the fans will dictate that.

Also remember that representing your country will bump up the profile of a player and that will mean that they can demand a greater salary from their club - ultimately players will drive the clubs to allow them to play at the top level.

Its also a little unfair to the clubs for players to be dragged away when they are trying to win matches. It affects their bottom dollar. Clubs accept that a player may not be available during the international window, and price that in, but when they are being used outside of that, then it affects how they run their business, and rightly get uppity about it.

As a parallel, remember the gnashing of teeth when Graham Henry didnt allow the top All Blacks to play in the first 7 rounds of the S14s in 2007 (it worked for the Black bastards as they managed to develop talent underneath that, bastards). Its the same sort of thing being asked of here.

 

[Gnostic]

There is the international window, which means that players will always be available for the international teams.

And as long as the premier game is the international, which it is, we will continue to see players representing their country - the fans will dictate that.

Also remember that representing your country will bump up the profile of a player and that will mean that they can demand a greater salary from their club - ultimately players will drive the clubs to allow them to play at the top level.

Its also a little unfair to the clubs for players to be dragged away when they are trying to win matches. It affects their bottom dollar. Clubs accept that a player may not be available during the international window, and price that in, but when they are being used outside of that, then it affects how they run their business, and rightly get uppity about it.

As a parallel, remember the gnashing of teeth when Graham Henry didnt allow the top All Blacks to play in the first 7 rounds of the S14s in 2007 (it worked for the Black bastards as they managed to develop talent underneath that, bastards). Its the same sort of thing being asked of here.

Sorry Farva I don't accept that the clubs are benign in this. I feel the English & French clubs in particular would like the International game to go the way of Soccer and become a once every four year festival with the rest being "Friendlies" which only a few of the top players play in with little or no preparation time.

The history of the NH clubs is pretty poor in this regard already with the last two RWC being marred to a certain extent by noteable PI players announcing their retirements from international Rugby to play Club level Rugby. Some of these players were still at or near their best, Trevor Leota springs to mind.

Can't draw a parallel between the "re-conditioning program" and this. That was sanctioned by the national team/union for the perceived good of the international game. How does this promote the tier two nations with players contracted to Pommie clubs to be on an even playing field.

 

[Thomond78]

For once, the English and French clubs are not the bad boys here. The Welsh and English, in particular, keep shoe-horning in extra, meaningless, games outside the agreed international window, demanding the players from the clubs even when those clubs are facing into the HEC back-to-backs, not insuring them, and in many cases returning them injured without even a hint of compensation. They're playing silly buggers with the clubs.

Even with only 21 central contracts here, and even with players abroad, it's not an issue for Ireland, because we don't organise extra games outside the test window, and we don't fuck the clubs over for the sport of it. And, since we play ball with them they play ball with us, to the extent that guys get specific exemptions for international duty, training and rest written into their contracts with the clubs; and the clubs in England agree, because the IRFU doesn't mess them around.

 

[Gnostic]

You've missed the point T78. The English Clubs are playing favourites here, they are refusing to release non-English players, so this has nothing to do with the English and Welsh Unions putting in more games. This is purely bloody mindedness from Clubs which have a history of encouraging PI players in particular to "retire" from international Rugby for a pay day to support their families.

This is to the detriment of the international game.

Like I said before using the NH model the international game would become like soccer.

 

[Thomond78]

Gnostic, I haven't. Because they are releasing non-English players; the Irish guys will be released, and it looks like the Scots will be, too - see here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/oct/20/scotland-players-autumn-tests. Because those unions have sorted stuff out, amicably, with the clubs. Whereas the Welsh, in particular, play silly buggers. The clubs themselves did a deal with RFU, which now seems to be working fine. There's nothing stopping the Welsh doing this.

To give you some background on this that you may be missing; Gatland has effectively said he won't pick players who go outside of Wales. He ignored Dwayne Peel for most of the last 6N on this basis, when he was available, preferring to pick the utterly gash Cooper instead (Gatland has long-standing issues with regard to selecting Peel). So for him now to be screaming of this is pretty much hypocrisy; all the more so when you consider the relationship of his deputy with Wasps. The fact that he claims to be speaking on behalf of the Irish is utter bullshit; not least because the example of Tommy Bowe's contract with the Ospreys, and the IRFU's handling of the matter, show just how inept he's been by comparison.

It's nothing to do with the NH structure, or with the international game; it's to do with the fact that, this once, the clubs are keeping to their side of the deal, when some unions have been acting the maggot (as, I regret to say, the Welsh have done with your game with them). Butch James being pulled for a test organised out of the blue outside of the international window being a good example. The international game is top; but you don't preserve the international game by destroying the club game in order to whore the international game out to keep the blazers in gin.

I'm sorry, gentlemen, but on this one, and as one who's backed the ERC and others in war with English and French clubs in the past, the fact is; Farva's right. For once, the English clubs are simply sticking to the deal, and asking others to do the same.

 

[Gnostic]

T78 you have still missed my point. Wales are big enough to look after themselves and can organise (or fail to as they please). The PI teams are reliant on the clubs to release and actively encourage their PI players. Until this happens in a demonstrable way they remain blacklisted in my book.

 

[Thomond78]

The other unions are talking to the clubs - and let's remember, the 35 days pre-RWC is what was set by the unions, not the clubs, and the clubs are releasing players this autumn for, for example, Samoa to play Ireland - so it's not a problem; the PI unions should talk to them.

The only people who're not talking to them - the Welsh - are the ones where the coach doesn't pick the guys in England even when they're available.

It's relevant to point out as well that there's a load of internecine politics going on in the WRU board at the moment, with guys being levered out, and people pandering to the villagists at the same time as they try to get central control without paying for it in Wales, so I have my own suspicions why Cementhead and Lewis are sounding off. Suffice to say, the Welsh fans themselves don't back them, if Gwlad is any guide.