Frontline England players started less than 40% of their clubs’ regular season Premiership matches in the 2022-23 campaign, the Guardian can reveal, exposing the full extent of one of the domestic game’s biggest problems.
The 10 players who featured in eight or nine of England’s nine matchday squads this season made a combined total of 79 starts in the Premiership out of a possible 203, which equates to 39%. The England captain, Owen Farrell, made the most (11) while Jack van Poortvliet made the least (four). The average across the 10 – the others being Freddie Steward, Henry Slade, Marcus Smith, Ellis Genge, Kyle Sinckler, Mako Vunipola, Jamie George and Maro Itoje – was 7.9 matches.
The 44 players who appeared in an England matchday squad started less than 50% of league games on average, demonstrating why Premiership clubs have concluded that there is questionable value in having multiple internationals in their squads when they are available for so little of the season and when the financial compensation diminishes the more Test players they have.
As a result, England players have become a less valuable asset for clubs who are having to operate under a reduced salary cap amid a bleak financial outlook, with London Irish in jeopardy of following Worcester and Wasps into the abyss.
In recent months, central contracts have been mooted as a solution by leading figures including the Rugby Football Union chief executive, Bill Sweeney, and Saracens’s director of rugby, Mark McCall, while a 10-team Premiership is in the pipeline, either from the 2024-25 season when the next Professional Game Agreement kicks in, or next term if London Irish are suspended.
If the Exiles survive, relegation is the most likely means by which 11 would become 10. There is widespread agreement across the league that a 10-team Premiership would avoid clashes with internationals and therefore be a more attractive proposition for broadcasters, all the more significant given the current deal with BT Sport is up at the end of next season.
It also explains why a growing number of England players are moving abroad. At La Rochelle, Jack Nowell will earn around double the amount Exeter offered for him to stay while David Ribbans, Joe Marchant and Sam Simmonds are all set to join their England teammate Jack Willis in France next season, with clubs overseas able to offer more and their Premiership counterparts less willing to match it. The situation is such that Anthony Watson, a world class winger, has struggled to find a club next season when England’s World Cup commitments will again affect players’ availability.
The majority of the core 10 England players are at a level where moving abroad is less appealing. Itoje, for example, has spoken of his desire to one day play abroad but he is one of the league’s top earners and though he could expect a pay bump in France or Japan, it would not be enough to offset the £200,000 shortfall in missed England appearance fees while his international ambitions would be curbed.
It is those less certain of their appearance fees, however, who are more inclined to make the move. Van Poortvliet and Steward, meanwhile, are both 22 and signed new Leicester deals last September. It is when that cohort of players reaches their peak that the Tigers are likely to encounter problems, as Saracens did previously and Exeter more recently.
Willis’s situation is different in the sense that he was in effect forced abroad when Wasps went bust but he explained soon after signing a contract extension with Toulouse that it was not viable for him to find a Premiership club. “Being an England player is not appealing to clubs at the moment because you are away for half the season and [clubs] don’t really get the financial benefits for it,” he said. “You kind of get caught in between in that zone, you are almost less valuable to them.”
By contrast, players on the fringes of the England squad such as Northampton’s Fraser Dingwall and Cadan Murley of Harlequins would appear to be of most value to their clubs. Dingwall made 19 regular season Premiership starts this season, Murley 18, but their clubs are still compensated for their involvement in England squads even though they are still waiting for their debuts.
Clashes with international windows have long been a source of frustration for clubs but it has been exacerbated this season because the Premiership final has been moved forward to accommodate England’s World Cup preparations. This season there were five direct clashes between Premiership and England fixtures – it would have been seven had the fixture list not been redrawn after the demises of Worcester and Wasps.
In addition, players miss club matches the week before both international campaigns, are mandated rest periods through the season and, though Smith was a notable exception, regular England starters hardly feature in the Premiership during Six Nations fallow weeks. The fact the two regular season meetings between Saturday’s finalists Saracens and Sale took place when England internationals were away only serves to highlight the problem.
This season, the picture might have been worse for more England regulars had Eddie Jones not been sacked and replaced by Steve Borthwick. All players used by Jones last autumn started 51% of their clubs’ matches while those deployed by Borthwick during the Six Nations managed 47%. The change in coach led to selection changes. Sale’s Jonny Hill started all four autumn internationals but, jettisoned by Borthwick, finished the Sharks’ regular season campaign with 16 Premiership starts. Similarly, Ollie Lawrence was overlooked by Jones but selected by Borthwick and finished with 15 Premiership starts for Bath and Worcester.
On the whole, however, the amount of league matches missed by his core players could suit Borthwick. Last year Steward exceeded the maximum number of minutes by playing 32 matches for Leicester and England in a season which culminated in the series win over Australia. By the end of that tour both Courtney Lawes and Itoje were running on fumes and though Borthwick concluded that his players were nowhere near fit enough after the Six Nations, burnout should be less of an issue as he plots England’s path to the World Cup.
