Should rugby follow cricket's example?

After just reading the injury woes Andy Robinson has to contend with for the Autumn Internationals and witnessing the carnage of Australia over the Rugby Championship and also the long list of injuries South Africa had to endure during the past season, it is clear to me that international players play too much rugby.

Between their club commitments and international duty, players seldom get the chance to fully recover from injuries and often a short term injury will turn into a long term layoff simply because the player was prematurly put back on the paddock.

This is however understandable as Clubs pay large sums of money to players for the instant success and expect their pound of flesh.

A few years ago Doctor Tim Noakes wrote a thesis on the injury toll of rugby players and discussed various isuues surrounding injury recovery, fatigue etc.

He was of the opinion that rugby players should not play more than about 24 test matches per year in order to facilitate muscle rehab, strengthening and sufficient rest.

When I look at International cricket and the long touring schedules countries have with a three or more test series, including ODI's and T20 matches, these international players play very little domestic cricket indeed. In fact most of them really play domestic cricket only to retain or regain form.

International cricketers can often be called up for international duty for most part of the season.

Now we all know test matches are the moeny makers and most domestic or interprovincial competitions baraly break even. Most clubs or regional teams these days have squads in excess of 35 players to cope with busy schedules and injury problems.

What if the decision was made to have a country contract their international squad fully, in other words no club signs for an international player and gets re imbursed for the slalary they would have paid a player for that year. This means the International players only play test matches:

This would in turn mean that they can play more test matches which ultimately will swell the coffers of each Union as more test matches would mean higher revenue.

Now I am not saying play 30 test matches, in fact not even 24 matches, but if international squads returned to 4 test series and midweek games, brgining back the tradition of tours you could perhaps have a situation where the test unions could now play at least a four test series away from home, a four test series at home and the annual competition such as the six nations or Rugby championship., there might even be a case for an extra test series per year.

This would bring the total test matches per country to 17-20 matches per year.

A significant increase in revenue and much better management of players.

I realise the biggest objection would be that the clubs are now missing their international stars and less people will turn up, I am not sure that is only negative, firstly the clubs or regional teams could become more profitable as they won't pay the "big" salaries to the international players and they could have smaller sqauds as they only need to manage players for domestic club rugby.

Because the international teams play more test matches there will be more revenue that can trickle down to the clubs or franchises.

Just a thought.

it would be a loss to the club game never to see the top players - this is what happened in cricket. Also some unions are fairly well set up this way anyway - Ireland and Scotland especially - the "club" teams rest players on instructions from the international coach

County cricket has empty stadiums and has done for decades. Can't say the same for rugby. Losing the club game, or at least access of best players to the club game would be a tragedy.

thats like comparing apples with oranges.

no offense to any cricketers, but the physical nature of rugby is far and away that of cricket.

The point is valid though. Rugby players (at the top level) play too many games.

6N's and 4N's with a WC or Lions tour. Then you have summer and autumn internationals. I love watching international rugby, but either the summer or autumn tours needs to be dropped. Best way would be to rotate them each year!

As for domestic rugby! the leagues needs to be 1,2 or 3 teams less. That would take 4 or 6 matches out the equation. Then player rotation should still be maintained and you'll find you have far better off players.

I think it would benefit the game, not only in that the standard would increase, but i think the longevity of the players would also increase!

reducing the number of teams in the league woudl also mean other chanegs would be required. In the RABO for example, a form of demotion/promotion would need to be implemented.

Its a total catch 22 though. The better the player, the more the club will want to play you. But the more your international team will want you rested so you are fresh. Also, if you don;t play enough or consitantly, you run the risk of not only becoming rusty, but loosing match fitness and therefore increasing your chances of injury!

Tattie I think there is valid concerns from people that the Test players won't be in the club or franchises.

But when you look at the players for example that has been called up to the Boks due to mass retirements and injuries, they have all shown their quality (well most of them)

So it might take a year or two for the clubs to become strong and replace the quality of the test players, but ultimately is it not important for the Rugby players to be better managed and ultimately provide quality performances?

While we could do with clubs resting players more, the international game is also to blame. We play far too many internationals nowadays - so much that they are not special any more. In fact, what was once special is now mundane.

LT, the problem is international matches are where the money is.

I don't have the exact numbers but SANZAR makes close to 70% of their broadcasting revenue from 12 tests vs 125 Super Rugby games.

It shows you how important test rugby is to finance the individual unions.

So for sustainability sake, it is more viable to increase the tests and have the domestic rugby compromise than other way around.

We should have a NH competition/SH competition in rotation with a SH/NH series and that's it.

The Spring/Series/Autumn + RWC + Lions is just too much rugby, now that we have so much "international" club rugby.

I think there should be a cap on how many club matches players are allowed play per anumn accross all leagues.

Club rugby will eventually ruin the international game which is something that should be prevented at all costs. Club rugby should always serve to strengthen the International game and rules should be put in place to ensure this is always the case.

A cap will in theory will allow the following:

-Less injuries at club level. This will improve the quality of International matches as the best players will be available for selection.
-better deveolpment of younger players.

Rugby should definitely not follow cricket's example. My liver can't take 5 day test matches, my heart can't take us over-performing at World Cups and then failing miserably the rest of the time and my stomach can't take SA at the top of the rankings.

IF rugby followed cricket we would end up with NZ begin crap, Australia have long periods of dominance, South Africa being rank number 1 but choking at world cups and the English team having lots of South African's.
This can't happen!

Rugby should absolutely not follow the Aussie crickt model. The current top down approach in the SH and copied in the North is an inherently unstable model with power concentrated in too few hands of either players or blazers.
The game will never expand under this model and we should restrict the number of Tests to 10 a year which is one a month on average with a two month summer break. This will force the expansion of the domestic game as a bottom up expansion.

A rebel league in India wouldn't work either. Packing down a scrum with Dehli belly would be potentially dangerous.

If not rather unpleasant.

Only if you're a lock or a back rower, though.

Terrible if you're a number 8, actually.

Or may be the Neanderthals and the Criminals should just toughen up. After all not all teams are suffering from crippling injury problems after the extended super 15.

It evens out because all top tier teams play a similarly high number of games. I reckon natural attrition of players is ok as it exposes the true strength of an international team and rugby in that country. Is oz really the 2nd best rugby playing country (assuming they still are) or are they just blessed with 15 players that win games but then get flogged to bits full time and fall over? I don't like seeing players hurt obviously, but differences in relative wider squad/provincial strengths between countries is an interesting development.

Easy to say as an AB fan, I appreciate that, but even when we have injuries to key players (DC recently), we can still scrape wins (but not always). We probably don't have the wholesale attrition injuries at the moment because of rotation of players throughout s15 and internationals.

I see the argument about wanting the best players playing, but if ya can't hack it, stiff titties

If you reduce the amount spent on players wages then their commercial value isn't so relevant as to when they are selected and therefor a club won't feel they are losing money when a top player is injured.

Put a cap on the amount a player can earn.

I love the central contract system- or should i say i did!! untill the recent KP fiasco!

But I still prefer the fact that international cricket teams are like clubs- they play all the time. And as I am an International only rugby fan- I agree that I wouold love to see more international rugby played

maestegmafia wrote:If you reduce the amount spent on players wages then their commercial value isn't so relevant as to when they are selected and therefor a club won't feel they are losing money when a top player is injured.

Put a cap on the amount a player can earn.

And how exactly can this be implemented?

mystiroakey wrote:I love the central contract system- or should i say i did!! untill the recent KP fiasco!

But I still prefer the fact that international cricket teams are like clubs- they play all the time. And as I am an International only rugby fan- I agree that I wouold love to see more international rugby played

Je suis d'accord.