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#Post#: 136103--------------------------------------------------
Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions Cup by
picking second string
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: April 3, 2025, 4:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Plus: Why Mark McCall is correct in making controversial
selection and the real source of blame is tournament’s falling
prestige
Charles Richardson
Rugby Reporter
Charles Richardson
Related Topics
Saracens Rugby, Harlequins Rugby, European Rugby Champions Cup
02 April 2025 12:00pm BST
57
Gift this article free
Harlequins' Head Coach Danny Wilson during the Gallagher
Premiership Rugby match between Bath Rugby and Harlequins at The
Recreation Ground on March 29, 2025 in Bath, England
Danny Wilson has hit out at Saracens’ decision to rest payers
for European competition Credit: Getty Images/Bob Bradford
Danny Wilson, Harlequins’ head coach, has entered the big
European selection debate by claiming that his club would never
disrespect the Champions Cup by naming a second-string team in a
knockout match.
Saracens, who like Quins are chasing a place in the Gallagher
Premiership play-offs, travel to Toulon in the last 16 on
Saturday and Mark McCall, Saracens’ director of rugby, has said
that they would prioritise the league over Europe by resting
Test stars.
England players who featured in all five Six Nations matches,
such as Saracens’ Maro Itoje, Ben Earl and Tom Willis – are
obliged to miss one of the first three matches after the
championship. Itoje and Willis played against Harlequins and
Leicester in the Premiership so will be forced to miss this
weekend’s trip to the Côte d’Azur. Earl, Elliot Daly and Jamie
George will also be rested this weekend after their England
exploits.
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“A lot of the English teams have done this, it’s not just us,”
McCall said.
Harlequins’ England trio – Fin Baxter, Chandler Cunningham-South
and Marcus Smith – are all available this weekend after being
controversially rested for the first match back after the Six
Nations, when the visitors defied the odds to defeat a
fully-loaded Saracens at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Marcus Smith playing for Harlequins
Marcus Smith was rested by Harlequins for the first domestic
game after the Six Nations Credit: Getty Images/Michael Steele
On how he would approach the competition, Wilson said: “I can’t
see us ever at Harlequins putting a second team out in a
Champions Cup game. That’s disrespecting what I think the
competition is. It’s an exciting competition that we want to be
part of and [we] want to do ourselves justice.
“Having said that, we have to manage our squad, full stop,
because the three games that we’ve had coming out of the break
[were] Saracens away, Bath away, Leinster away – we haven’t had
a home game for three weeks and obviously [there was] a lot of
travel, a lot of challenges, a lot of physical, confrontational
games, which means you have to manage your squad.”
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When asked about Wilson’s comments, McCall said: “I haven’t seen
that, but you’ve got three games. Probably going forward, it is
not ideal that it is such a rigid three-week window. After the
autumn internationals, you have a three-week window as well.
There are two European Cup games in the three weeks after the
autumn internationals. So teams have got to make these kinds of
decisions more and more. There used to be a longer window to
rest the players. We made our decision midway through the Six
Nations that we were going to go this route and everyone in the
club supports it.
“Every club has got to choose whether it is the Premiership that
they compromise in or Europe. We took the decision collectively
with the players that they would play in the two Premiership
matches.
“We are going to pick a strong team [for Toulon]. I think there
are 10 or 11 internationals in the starting XV. We know the
scale of the challenge over there. I’m not sure they’ve lost at
home in the last two years. They’ve got a phenomenal home
record. It’s a great place to go, but a hard place to go. The
players have been buoyed by the weekend and we are going to give
it everything.”
McCall added how managing players’ workloads in World Cup and
Lions years was “particularly challenging” but that “not playing
games is not the only way to manage a player”.
“If you look at Maro [Itoje’s] playing programme for the last
five years, you’ll find that in the non-Lions years and
non-World Cup years, he was at 23 or 24 games in some of those
years,” McCall said. “Over the last five years, he will have
averaged under 30 games, which is the approximate number of
games that have been suggested in the guidelines. I suppose if
you are playing 30 games a year, you have 22 weekends where you
are not playing. That’s 40 per cent of your weekends. That’s a
lot of weekends where you are not playing. There just has to be
a balance.
“Not playing games is not the only way to manage a player. After
the New Zealand tour in the summer, we gave our players an extra
week off – six weeks instead of five weeks – because we realised
just how tough a year that had been for them. When they are with
us, they don’t train all the time. If you have one day off a
week, all of a sudden you have 30 more days off a year. There
are different ways of managing players.”
Last year, Wilson selected both Danny Care and Joe Marler in
three successive Premiership rounds despite the duo’s Six
Nations involvement and then opted to rest them for the
Champions Cup quarter-final in Bordeaux – a match that Quins won
42-41. Harlequins’ head coach says he has learnt a lot from how
that period in the spring of 2024 was managed.
“Our approach was built on lessons learnt from last year,”
Wilson said. “We all know players come out of those
international periods emotionally, physically, mentally pretty
spent. There’s a lot asked of them. But it’s the emotional side
of it that I’ve said a few times before is the one that drains
and is probably less recognised.”
Comment: I would do the same as Sarries
There is quite a bit to unpack here, but no matter which side of
the fence one happens to fall, they are all ultimately in the
same garden. The fundamental piece here is that the Champions
Cup just does not have the prestige that it once did.
Some 10 or 15 years ago, had McCall and Saracens – or anyone,
for that matter – been in this position, no way would they have
chosen to rest their big names for a European knockout match.
Admittedly, player-welfare guidelines have progressed for the
betterment of the sport in the intervening period, but had
today’s guidelines existed back then, no way would Saracens have
rested their internationals for a trip to Toulon’s galacticos.
Back then, the competition was arguably the world’s greatest
featuring an oval ball. Now, that prestige and cachet is long
gone.
Were I in McCall’s shoes – which all Saracens fans will no doubt
be glad to hear I am not – I would have done the same.
Saracens' Tom Willis applauds the fans at the final whistle of
the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between Saracens and
Harlequins at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on March 22, 2025 in
London, England
Tom Willis will not feature for Saracens in the south of France
this weekend Credit: Getty Images/Rob Newell
Saracens’ spot in the Premiership play-offs is by no means
assured and off the back of the Six Nations they hosted Quins in
their showcase match in Tottenham followed by a tricky trip to
Welford Road to take on Leicester, who were in third at the
time. Perhaps, the original plan was to swat aside Harlequins
and then rest players to face the Tigers, but once that match in
north London slipped through their grasp, a loss at Leicester
would have virtually ended their season. McCall had no choice.
Maybe the way to avoid this in future is to have a top six
play-off system as in France, but that robs Peter to pay Paul.
In a league of just 10 teams, the Premiership would then be
devalued as Europe’s stock increases.
Many things can be true at the same time. McCall’s approach is
understandable (yet regrettable) and Wilson is fair when he
suggests that Saracens are disrespecting the competition.
Ultimately, however, it is a competition that has brought
disrespect on itself. The task for European rugby administrators
is to help it recapture those salad days when such rotation
would have been unthinkable.
#Post#: 136104--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: April 3, 2025, 4:47 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Playing on the Quins/Saffas rivalry and ended up being all about
McCall.
#Post#: 136107--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: Brown Bottle
Date: April 3, 2025, 5:57 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I agree with Richardson; the competition has been devalued, but
not by Sarries.
#Post#: 136108--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: Q
Date: April 3, 2025, 6:03 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote ---
> Harlequins’ England trio – Fin Baxter, Chandler
Cunningham-South and Marcus Smith – are all available this
weekend after being controversially rested for the first match
back after the Six Nations
--- End Quote ---
Was it that controversial? They all needed a rest at some point,
Saracens was the 'easiest' match in the few weeks after the Six
Nations.
#Post#: 136109--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: SiB
Date: April 3, 2025, 6:09 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Bloodgate?
Think maybe Danny should focus more on Quins and not Sarries,
they are obviously focussed on premiership, and think they are
probably making the right choice, and they don’t have a choice
for the rest period now
#Post#: 136110--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: poorfour
Date: April 3, 2025, 6:36 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Q link ---
>
> Was it that controversial? They all needed a rest at some
point, Saracens was the 'easiest' match in the few weeks after
the Six Nations.
>
--- End Quote ---
And we won.
#Post#: 136111--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: MaidstoneQuin
Date: April 3, 2025, 7:10 am
---------------------------------------------------------
The rules are the rules, players had to be rested. It's not
Sarries fault as much as we dislike them.
Can't win either way. Rest their players against us at their big
game, probably accusations of cheapening their big day.
English clubs know the reality is no one in our division is good
enough to beat Toulouse, so what's the point when you have a far
more winnable trophy at play (the league). I'd have rested our
players for this fixture personally, and whilst hindsight is
nice where we beat Sarries, that isn't really the point.
The problem is the rules in place. Just don't have any rugby for
a week after the 6 nations, then there is no issue with
returning players.
#Post#: 136113--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: Banstead Quin
Date: April 3, 2025, 7:54 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Of course, we don't know how the question was asked so it may be
spun to look worse than it is. If the question was "would you
ever........" then his response is fine. If the question was "do
you agree with Mark MaCall resting players" then it's a bit
silly by Wilson and why does he need to get involved?
Agree with all of the above regarding how Europe is drowning in
it's own mess and could help raise the value of it's own
tournament by working with the clubs and International bodies,
rather than just focussing on itself. Still, as long as Toulouse
& Leinster are happy then they're fine.
#Post#: 136127--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: Bucksquin
Date: April 3, 2025, 10:57 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: MaidstoneQuin link ---
>
>
> English clubs know the reality is no one in our division is
good enough to beat Toulouse, so what's the point when you have
a far more winnable trophy at play (the league).
>
>
--- End Quote ---
It's Toulon that Salarycens are playing, not Toulouse. Unless
you mean that since no one can beat Toulouse in a later round,
it's not worth them trying to win the current (or any future)
round.
#Post#: 136128--------------------------------------------------
Re: Danny Wilson: Harlequins would never disrespect Champions
Cup by picking second string
DIR By: Brown Bottle
Date: April 3, 2025, 10:59 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Bucksquin link ---
>
> It's Toulon that Salarycens are playing, not Toulouse. Unless
you mean that since no one can beat Toulouse in a later round,
it's not worth them trying to win the current (or any future)
round.
>
--- End Quote ---
I believe Toulouse away would be Saracens' 1/4 final if they
beat Toulon.
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