Andrea Pinchen (Leicester Tigers, left) and Lucy Rae (Saracens, right) are two of the biggest players in English rugby. Phil Mingo
Gavin Meirs, Chief Rugby Correspondent, talks to Premier League semi-finalist club leaders about the main challenges facing the English game.
Gavin Meirs: Andrea , it's been an extremely difficult season for your club, losing so many managers to England I think looking at it positively means you must have been doing something right?
Andrea Pinchen (Leicester Tigers):The takeaway for us is how proud we all are of the players and how they handled it all and all the behind-the-scenes staff. The loss of head coach [Steve Borthwick] and defensive coach [Kevin Sinfield] in December came as a big surprise to them. You don't lose two managers in the middle of a season and then have to tell the team that you're going to lose three more [Richard Wigglesworth, Aled Walters and Tom Harrison] without any influence on it. But I'm also very proud of the guys for their performance in England. It's what they wanted and we didn't want to get in the way of it.
Myres: Notice that this has been a season of change for Northampton as well?
Mark Darbon (Northampton Saints): strong>Yes, not exactly what Andrea and the Tigers went through, but we have Phil Dawson, who became director of rugby, a young coach who, by his own admission, is just starting his coaching journey. I think it was rollercoaster season on and off the field. We've scored more tries than anyone else, but also missed more tries than anyone else.
Syd Sutton (Sale Sharks): From our point of view, it was a really exciting season, we finished second and that's what we were aiming for. Alex [Sanderson] did an amazing job and exceeded my expectations on and off the field. We've also had significant incremental changes, with our average audience going from 3,800 pre-Covid to a projected 8,500 this season. But as far as rugby in general, I think this is my third season, I was hoping for a quieter season, but everyone tells me that this does not happen in the world of rugby! It was very obvious what we had to deal with at the beginning of the season with the very unfortunate circumstances of Wasp and Wooster.Sid Sutton has revolutionized sales this season. Photo: Getty Images/Matthew Lewis
Lucy Ray (Saracens): We are well versed in crisis management. While other clubs may have felt the crisis for the first time, this season has been pretty calm for us! It has been a tough season for everyone on a macro level due to what has happened but with my Saracen hat we have around £2m in revenue growth over our pre-crisis 2018-19 season including dealing with relegation, Covid and loss matches and now you have a turnover of £25m at group level.
Myrs: Andrea, you have lost your coaches in England, but what about the salary cap issue and keep the best English talent in the Premier League?
Pinchen:Of course it's a challenge, we all want to pay our players what we can but at the same time we are a business and I need to make sure Leicester Tigers are still here for the next 100 years. As Lucy said, it's about making sound business decisions for the long term. That's why your academy is so important to what you do.
Darbon:Lowering the limit is becoming more and more relevant for more clubs and it is really difficult to complete all your tasks. This requires compromises on your game base. For example, we just re-signed Courtney Lowes and it wasn't an easy process. He is a world class player and deserves to be rewarded for his ability, but our calendar and structure is such that your best international players are away for significant periods of the season. We had a huge gap earlier this season, but Courtney compromised, we compromised, and now we have a good result. The reason it worked for Corts is because he has always made it clear that his first preference is to stay and we wanted him to stay.
Both Courtney Lowes forced Northampton to compromise on his new contract. Credit: Getty Images/Alex Davidson
Mairs: Clubs that develop quality English players are having a hard time keeping them under the lockdown as their salaries soar. Is the decision to provide more incentive by adapting the cap to reflect this, or more reward from the RFU to develop players for the national team?
Sutton:I'm not sure there is a magic solution. We have doubled our investment in our academy because we want to develop our own local talent. This not only helps us economically, but also increases the interest of local residents in the club. The environment might be appropriate, but if you develop a couple of players who get the cap and you're thrilled with them, the agent will call you the following Monday morning and ask for more money. In real commercial terms, they're asking me to pay more money for a player we'll see less of now. It's more of a calendar issue for me than a ceiling issue.
Ray: I think there are adjustments to the salary cap in terms of a credit system with local loans and international loans. loans. Because if you are a homebrew player and then continue to play as England, you cannot max credits to that person because there is a limit for one player. We want to create talent and that's what England wants from us.
Darbon:Our conversation with Courtney would have been much easier if he hadn't been away [with England] at 50 per cent a year. The calendar does not only affect these difficult decisions for the players. We cannot say that we have the best rugby competition in the world when we play such a large part of the matches in the shadow of an international game without the club's best players on the field. The complication of the calendar is at the heart of many of the challenges we face in both sports management and audience growth.
Mark Darbon has seen Phil Dawson take over at Northampton this season. Photo: Getty Images/David Rogers
Ray: Broadcasters always say that the most important thing for them is to have the best players playing consistently in most games. This needs to be dealt with at the root.
Pinchen:We need to go around the table and look at the calendar not from an individual point of view, but in a way that is right for the promotion of the game and right for the fan. If we have the best talent on the pitch, we will get TV contracts that are more effective for the clubs, making the restriction easier to manage and then we can keep the best players in England.
Myers: Negotiations have begun between the Rugby Premier League and the RFU on a new professional gaming agreement. Does this sound like a defining moment for the sport?
Sutton: Not just for professional games, but for rugby in general. All parts of the game are inextricably linked. If we do not develop mass rugby, then the threat [to professional sport] will arise in 10 years. We need to develop the game as a whole, and cooperation is the only way to do this. We have a problem in north Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire where schools are playing less and less rugby. We need to get to the bottom of this.
Darbon: I think this is really a pivotal time for our sport, at the elite level and beyond. The game is a bit shabby and I think some of it was well deserved. We must come out with a clear plan. I think alignment and collaboration is critical. When I got into the game five years ago, I was surprised at how fragmented one sport can be. There is a lot more cooperation between Premier League clubs now, but we have to work with other key players, as Syd said, especially now with the RFU and the new agreement. Personally, I don't think an agreement can succeed unless we have really agreed goals and strategies.
Ray: We must make the most of the crisis and seize the opportunity for change. I think at the PRL and RFU level they should do a big management reorganization so that the CEO is free to actually make decisions in the interests of the game and hopefully do it jointly. Since we are so passionate about our own business, you need some form of independence that can look at the bigger game and not always be popular. Some solutions won't be popular, but there needs to be strong leadership to basically strip the plaster off. If you hire a good manager, they will not be able to do the job with one hand tied behind their back, which is expected of them at the RFU and PRL level.
Darbon Another important stakeholder group, if we're going to do it right, it's the players. You know, our players have brilliant ideas about how to develop the game, make it cool, to attract young people. We're all sitting here as club leaders thinking, «God, we have an aging demographic, how do we continue to attract young people, build the audience of the future commercially, monetize them over time?» The players have some brilliant ideas to get more of these people involved. So we should take the players with us.”
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