DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
ComeAllWithin (Harlequins Rugby)
HTML https://comeallwithin.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: ComeAllWithin Board
*****************************************************
#Post#: 36240--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: DOK
Date: January 19, 2020, 5:58 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Saracens' wholesale abuse of the salary cap is British rugby's
biggest-ever scandal... on-field glories will be tainted forever
HTML https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2020/01/19/saracens-wholesale-abuse-salary-cap-british-rugbys-biggest-ever/
--- Quote ---
>
> Still the widespread schadenfreude that is doing the rounds on
social media should be tempered with sadness. Saracens have been
a force for so much good. They have developed Jamie George, Owen
Farrell, Maro Itoje and the Vunipola brothers into world-class
players. Their academy remains the most productive in English
rugby. The club’s community department undertakes incredible
work with autistic people and young offenders. They even opened
their own school in Colindale, one of the most deprived boroughs
in London.
>
> The unfortunate reality is all those wonderful achievements
might be subsumed by this scandal. No one remembers Lance
Armstrong for his charity work.
>
--- End Quote ---
#Post#: 36247--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: Dibden
Date: January 19, 2020, 6:16 am
---------------------------------------------------------
New chairman and ceo chose relegation over opening the
books??Clearly the abuse is far bigger than what we know and
implicate others -McCall the players?The sheer effrontery that
Wray believed he could get away with it despite the 2015
deal.Appalling and abysmal.Cheering on Racing today
#Post#: 36249--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: Bolly-Quin
Date: January 19, 2020, 6:20 am
---------------------------------------------------------
PRL and Sarries have to open this all up otherwise there will be
a mess for years.
#Post#: 36255--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: Grubs
Date: January 19, 2020, 7:00 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Nunquam Dormio link ---
>
> If Sarries refused to allow a full investigation what are they
hiding? Possibly tax evasion that could lead to criminal
prosecution? Intersting times with so many red flags.
>
--- End Quote ---
It’s a hell of a leap from failing to comply with a salary cap
to tax evasion. The Saracens company will have to account for
corporation tax, employer’s NIC, PAYE, etc. and the individual
players for their own taxable income but they’re in no way
linked to the cap arrangement.
#Post#: 36256--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: Fearless Fred
Date: January 19, 2020, 7:06 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Anyone wanting to subject themselves to the full Stephen Jones
article, here it is...
[Quote=The Times]Relegating Saracens shows that rugby is unfit
to govern itself
stephen jones
A ridiculous end to a nonsensical process, which will leave
plenty of people much the worse for it
Share
Save
So Saracens are officially relegated. Perhaps we should first
look at rugby’s overall landscape and assess how profoundly that
has changed everything. Then we can deal with the murky depths
into which the game has sunk, and ponder how rugby became one of
the world’s most embittered and secret of societies.
And we can try to detect the sport’s supposed values in the fact
that no one implicated in imposing the punishment on Saracens
can summon up one word for the innocents — their players,
followers, those who may now be left unemployed. They have
expressed no concern about the ill effects on England of
relegating the national team’s core; or the effect on the
Saracens academy, the most successful production line for
English talent.
Apparently, as long as Premiership Rugby and its members got
Sarries in the end, all this is subjugated, the injured
innocents mere collateral damage. Any explanation? Premiership
Rugby is almost silent, its chief executive and chairman
apparently almost mute, refusing to share with the public until
the briefest of statements last night.
The Premiership is palpably diminished for next season. Some of
us have seen some club rugby: Cardiff and Newport, Bath and
Leicester and Wasps, Leinster and Munster, Toulouse, Brive and
Stade Francais in their greatest years. None can touch Saracens.
In this era, they have been the greatest club team I have seen.
Without Saracens for a season, there will be one excellent team
(Exeter), three clubs improving but nowhere remotely near there
yet (Gloucester, Sale and Northampton) but above all, a
mid-table of inconsistent clubs who can all lose to anyone on
the day.
With relegation now decided, all the energy, panic, bigger
crowds and drama are drained away. Most of the rest of this
season will be as dull as ditchwater. A priceless lesson for
anyone wanting to ring-fence the competition.
It will also be easy to say that the landscape will change for a
vast number of the disabled, indisposed, mentally unwell, lonely
and the ageing, by any cut in the Saracens finances. But the
umbrella for the unfortunate will not go away. I am positive
that Nigel Wray will continue the Saracens Foundation, because
it is arguably a bigger part of his life than Saracens rugby
ever was.
But back to changes. Everyone knows that rugby is strangling
itself by a lack of independence in its officialdom. Premiership
Rugby, like all other rugby institutions, still consists of a
bunch of blokes with a massive vested interest calling shots to
suit themselves. It is nonsensical that the people who have sat
in judgment recently on Saracens are their rivals. Will the
penny drop? Rugby is unfit to govern itself.
Last week, we read about 10 different estimates of how far
Saracens were over the salary cap. In the world of secrecy you
can make up your own figure. The real problem for the club’s
rivals was that the savagery of the original punishment was not
enough. It did not kill them off. So the new “trials” began,
completed processes were reactivated.
Farrell, left, and Itoje have been leading lights in this
generational Saracens team
Farrell, left, and Itoje have been leading lights in this
generational Saracens team
GLYN KIRK/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
As the days went by, Saracens apparently received more letters
from on high, demanding this and that and even reparations,
which were completely outside the regulations. Then another
investigation was called, which Premier Rugby’s chief executive
declared could well introduce even more swingeing measures.
At the Saracens end, the very able Edward Griffiths had been
brought in to clean up the mess. He had been away from the club
scene for a long time but, by all accounts, quickly tried to
sort things, fired off apologies, committed to reduce Saracens’
salaries if needed. Naturally, any players he tried to offload
held no interest for the Premiership clubs, because it suited
them not to do business with Saracens. But suddenly, Saracens
were being pressed almost instantaneously to prove that they
were under the salary cap for this season, which is halfway
through, and to do so within days. Within days.
Their opponents realised that, under the regulations, they could
not relegate Saracens. No way. So they made relegation
impossible to avoid by punishing Saracens for a season half
over. You would not have to be a Saracen to find some of this
reprehensible.
Even those of us who, after the initial two years, never
believed in the salary cap, realise that the laws must be
adhered to. Only last week I was regaled by one of the attendees
at the original meeting where the salary cap was passed, by 7-5,
after which most of the delegates emerged laughing at how
ineffective the move was likely to be. Even now it is still
laughably easy to get round it if you want to.
And the confidentiality? The secrecy in rugby now has gone
beyond all reason. Media officers are not allowed to spread
anything in the way of information. Everything has become a
secret.
Some matters are in the open, however. Saracens infringed the
salary cap, an offence which deserved, say, a 10-point penalty.
They are relegated. There will be enormous problems which the
club are trying to fix. On a final note, I will go to my grave
believing that no payment to a single Saracens player made a
blind bit of difference to any match at any time. And that
frankly, Saracens have just been too good.
Now is time for Jones to move on from likes of Youngs and
Tuilagi
It all begins again tomorrow, when England announce their
training squad from which their Six Nations squad will be
chosen. Which measurements will Eddie Jones apply in his final
deliberations? Current merit? Experience? Degree by which a
choice thumbs his nose at public or media opinion? Blatant
unknown?
All good fun. Or is it? Jones is the man who helped inspire the
greatest performance in England rugby history, the savaging of
New Zealand in the World Cup semi-final. And also admitted to
(some of) his mistakes in the selection and set-up of the squad
at the start and end of the tournament and which helped cost
them the final.
One sure way to get much of the nation on his side is to win a
grand slam this year. Some of us had enough, decades ago, of
selection based on a misty-eyed tilting at a distant future in
which only one game of about 46 (the World Cup final) matters a
damn.
And we have become tired of pointing out that a grand slam, a
wonderful achievement in so internecine and tight a competition,
is a national boost of epic proportions. Short-term glory.
Basking. Glinting. You cannot beat it. And it carries you
forward on a wave benign enough to surf upon.
Saracens’ players have to be assessed. Many of them will, in
their hearts, put the fortunes of their club above those of
England at present. Then Jones can start to atone for scrum
errors. Dan Cole will surely be moved out and I would also leave
out Ellis Genge, pending further evidence. Harry Williams of
Exeter will take up the squad place he deserved in Japan but
never won. Ehren Painter of Northampton is a longish shot at
tight-head
Behind the scrum, the endless search for the correct midfield is
into its 17th season, but this time should be conducted in the
absence of Manu Tuilagi. Mark Atkinson of Gloucester is more
consistent, he is hefty, but he can also play. Luke and Sam
James, of Sale, deserve a shot, maybe as a double-double act
with the Curry twins.
The best scrum halves? On merit, Richard Wigglesworth, Ben
Spencer and either Dan Robson or Joe Simpson. Sorry, but the
World Cup selection was wrong in the position, so for me these
three succeed Ben Youngs and Willi Heinz.
Alex Dombrandt of Harlequins, Jack Willis of Wasps and the
resurgent Teimana Harrison of Northampton will contend in the
back row, and as for a mature bolter, who is better as a back-up
at fly half than Bristol’s Callum Sheedy?
All these men are on form. Not that that means an awful lot to a
certain head coach. We wait, and wince, for tomorrow. Dear
Eddie, dear England. [/quote]
#Post#: 36263--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: Robertquin
Date: January 19, 2020, 7:52 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Jones really is quite nauseating. , "They've a fantastic
team and some of them play for England so it's OK and they do
stuff for the kids" is the thrust of his argument. Missing
entirely the point that it's an illegitimatelty assembled bunch
which only exists because they lied and cheated every team and
rugby supporter, including their own.
#Post#: 36268--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: never sleep
Date: January 19, 2020, 8:11 am
---------------------------------------------------------
On his logic, any team should be able to pay any amount and just
start the season at -10 points.
#Post#: 36272--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: Twickersman
Date: January 19, 2020, 9:02 am
---------------------------------------------------------
If they win the Heinkien cup, do they get to keep it?
#Post#: 36274--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: You Shall Not Pass
Date: January 19, 2020, 9:21 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Thegp link ---
>
> The Saracens fans are going to be bitter and defensive. We’d
be the same right now
>
--- End Quote ---
I felt inwardly bewildered and betrayed and was outwardly
contrite when we went through our troubles. I've observed
similar from many Sarries fans. For those of them that are
spouting vitriol for Exeter et al they are probably still
experiencing the first and second stages of grief. We are a
rugby family and we more than most should understand their fans'
emotions.
#Post#: 36276--------------------------------------------------
Re: Saracens facing automatic relegation....
DIR By: stoquin
Date: January 19, 2020, 11:02 am
---------------------------------------------------------
He is unbelievable, I would of thought that the sports editor
would have pulled that before printing it is so off the general
feeling across the country and within rugby.
*****************************************************
Page 15 of 23
DIR Previous Page
DIR Next Page