Player workload in different rugby playing nations

[Blue]

There is sometimes a perception that the NH players play more rugby in their season than their SH counterparts. As Paarl pointed out in another thread, some of the French clubs operate a dual squad, but from my knowledge they don't all do that. Some teams like Racing seem to me to pick from a wider squad rather than split the squads.

How about the English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish clubs? How many games would their frontline players get on average in a season assuming the are in the Heineken Cup?

Not sure we have a thread like this. Can't seem to find one.

I'll have a go at the Saffers. To try and compare I think we should focus on the typical player who is in the top 30 and likely to make it into the test team and tally the maximum number of games he could potentially play.

Saffers:


Super Rugby pre-season: 2 to 3
Super Rugby: assuming team makes finals: 16 to 19
Incoming Tests: 2 (some years 3)
Tri Nations: 6
Currie Cup: About 5 or 6 games by the time they join the party post-3N and of course depends on whether their team makes the finals or not.
Spring Tour: Four

So the top South African players (forget the shambles of a World Cup year for now) will play between 30 and 35 games if they are injury free. The absolute maximum is 39 but I doubt anyone gets near that. I'll try and make sense of some other countries when I get the time.

 

[qwerty51]

There's 16 regular season super rugby games. Assuming finals means 18-19.

Australia is much the same but one more Bledisloe Test, only some play club rugby before the Spring tour however

 

[Sully]

Isn't there a limit of 30 (I think) games per year for Aussies?

 

[antipodean]

RUPA Guidelines list the maximum which I understand to be 30 games.

 

[qwerty51]

I'm trying to think if anyone did more than 30, the closest I can think of would be Burgess last year with 14 super rugby games and 14 Tests. I don't think he missed a game. He would've played pre-season games too

 

[wolverine]

There are some good on Its Rugby, that detail games played and minutes played. Australian website Rugby Stats lists statistics for games from this season, but South African website Rugga Stats contains more detailed involvement statistics (though it is currently down). The French version of Its Rugby is probably the best, as it allows you to access player statistics from previous seasons.

Anyway, of some major nations, on average, the Wallabies play in the fewest games per season, followed by the All Blacks, Springboks, England, then France. England players are limited to playing in 32 games per season. I guess the Ireland test players would be managed similarly to the Boks. The workload of the Wallabies and All Blacks is probably the lightest.