Should a Rugby Club be allowed to tell a player they can't play International Rugby if they sign their contract?

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We see this situation in the two wealthiest rugby nations in Europe all too regularly.

A welsh player at Toulon this year was told that he could have a contract if he dropped out of Welsh selection.

The Premier Rugby Ltd an organisation run by english club owners for their benefit won't let international players represent their nations unless it is ruled so by the IRB or if they are paid a massive amount of money.

Is this right or wrong?

Rugby survives on the international game, the world cup is rapidly becoming the focal point it was intended to be, presiding over tri nations, six nations, pacific nations tournaments. All nations should be able to compete at their best, with all their best players available.

Nations should not be divided into haves and have nots by wealth.

Griff wrote:Hammer, I think we all agree and understand that a club cannot STOP a player playing international rugby during the international window. The question is whether clubs can/do/will in future incentivise (is that a word?!) players to opt out of international rugby. I.e. A club wants to build a big squad of players that won't be away for large periods of time. The club therefore says that they will pay that little bit extra to players if they commit to giving up international rugby. Would clubs do that? Would players go for it? I doubt it's illegal in the IRB's eyes, but it's not great for the international game either. But this is where business and sport are at cross purposes I guess.

I'd imagine it doesn't matter if it is illegal in the IRB's eyes - if they tried to ban it they'd be straight in the courts for restraint of trade.
I don't think it is business and sport at cross purposes - more two different sporting aims at cross purposes. The clubs want the strongest side they can have as often as possible and so do the international sides.... though having said one of the biggest strains over the last few seasons have been the extra AI games international teams have played which exist purely to make money, so I guess there is a clear element of business on the Unions part going against the sporting needs of the clubs.

It would be far from unreasonable for a club to say that they want to employ a player who will not be called upon for national duty. The key is that they make this apparent before any contracts are signed, which in most cases that I can think of it has been.

Take Leicester as an example of a possible scenario. Both their preferred TH props represent their country. It would be unresponsible for them in recruiting backup to this position not to ask candidates the question of whether they had hopes or would take up the opportunity to play a part in their national team's squad (even as a fringe member who would be unlikely to get game time). If the answer is yes, the club would be completely correct to say, sorry you're not for us, we need someone to play in the international window. That may incentivise the player to give up the dream of possibly playing for their country, but I don't see how you could hold the club culpable for the player taking that decision, the club has to be honest about its needs and the player could choose another option (possibly less well payed, but life is filled with such decisions and it distills what is most important to you).

Peel and his agent if he has one should have negotiated a better deal!

No sympathy for the guy I'm afraid, his employed by Sale therefore he has to tow the line.

The problem with the whole scenario is that part of the non international part of rugby plays in clubs, which are companies and run accordingly. Their job is to win and keep the fans/sponsors/TV companies interested in their commodity, the other part are regions/franchises, which are aiming to attract cash from fans and sponsors, but they are overseen by a Union that has requests them to encourage youth talent.

Snoopster had a good example...!

snoopster wrote:
It is also tricky because I don't think it is wrong for a club, say Newcastle, who are run on a tight budget to choose not to renew a player's contract because they only have £150,000 to spend on fly halfs in their budget and thus can't afford a non-English NH fly half who is on £150,000 but missing large chunks of the season on international duty so the club prefer to let him go and sign a fly half from Australia for that amount who is available for every game. What should happen? Newcastle should keep the fly half even though doing so badly weakens their squad and means they are likely to be relegated? The fly half should move even if it means signing for another club even though he wants to play for Newcastle more than he wants to play for his country?

If that were a Welsh, Irish, Scottish region or a SH Super Franchise the first place they would be looking to is their academy, the club system doesn't, it looks abroad for a proven performer at a reasonable price. They have to as not getting into the HEC or even worse getting relegated would cost them a fortune.

maestegmafia wrote:The problem with the whole scenario is that part of the non international part of rugby plays in clubs, which are companies and run accordingly. Their job is to win and keep the fans/sponsors/TV companies interested in their commodity, the other part are regions/franchises, which are aiming to attract cash from fans and sponsors, but they are overseen by a Union that has requests them to encourage youth talent.

Snoopster had a good example...!

snoopster wrote:
It is also tricky because I don't think it is wrong for a club, say Newcastle, who are run on a tight budget to choose not to renew a player's contract because they only have £150,000 to spend on fly halfs in their budget and thus can't afford a non-English NH fly half who is on £150,000 but missing large chunks of the season on international duty so the club prefer to let him go and sign a fly half from Australia for that amount who is available for every game. What should happen? Newcastle should keep the fly half even though doing so badly weakens their squad and means they are likely to be relegated? The fly half should move even if it means signing for another club even though he wants to play for Newcastle more than he wants to play for his country?

If that were a Welsh, Irish, Scottish region or a SH Super Franchise the first place they would be looking to is their academy, the club system doesn't, it looks abroad for a proven performer at a reasonable price. They have to as not getting into the HEC or even worse getting relegated would cost them a fortune.

That's not really true. The reason why the clubs look to foreign born players is because there aren't 360 top quality English players. The vast majority of English players won't get a look in at international level and therefore are a good bet. In Wales, Scotland and Ireland the player pool is much smaller so any player may well get a call up. the reason clubs don't look to the acadamies too much is that they're limited to a certain number of games before having their salary come into the cap. This is changing for next season. In fact there's been a steady rise in the last few seasons of the younger players getting game time. Partly due to RFU incentive payments and the general improvement in the acadamy players.

Great news on the new RFU incentive, should help the situation all round.

Until then though, what i said is unequivocally true there are plenty of players who they could select that would be cheaper, but not as good.

maestegmafia wrote:If that were a Welsh, Irish, Scottish region or a SH Super Franchise the first place they would be looking to is their academy, the club system doesn't, it looks abroad for a proven performer at a reasonable price.

I'm not sure how true that claim is. Take Ospreys as an example, everyone knows that they are losing a number of players next year, and so far they've drafted in 5 foreign players as a result, Stowers, Fotuali'i, Bearman, Jarvis, Smith.

In the AP, yes there will be more foreign players, there are far more teams and the academies aren't as established. That being said, looking at FH again, you have Bath bringing in Donald, but you also have Gloucester making 21yo Burns 1st choice, and the likes of Farrell, Clegg & Ford coming through the academies and being heavily backed.

Bearman is Welsh Qualified now. Although you could argue that bring qualified players from another team isn't different to bringing in non-qualified players. You're still not relying on your acadamy.

Johnpartle as well as Bearman, both Jarvis and Smith are Welsh qualified, Jarvis has a Welsh Grandmother and Smiths father is from Wrexham. IMO the fault in the DP case is himself, he should have had it written into his contract especially when it was renewed, but as NO REGION CAME IN FOR HIM, he was not in a very strong negotiating position. He made his bed he should now lay in it. As for the WRU position, I fully endorse it, governing bodies deal with governing bodies, you only deal with lesser companies within your own jurisdiction, if players want to go for the money, go but forget your international ambitions until you come back.

I was under the impression that the OP had made the point of seperating the issue discussed in this post from that in his Dwayne Peel one. He seemed more concerned here with teams not wanting to employ players who would be selected for their country (more like in Henson's case) rather than players not getting release for extended training camps beyond the IRB designated window.

As HammerofThunor rightly pointed out, the main issue from the earlier post I was countering in highlighting those Ospreys players was that they were definitely not academy derived

wayne wrote:Johnpartle as well as Bearman, both Jarvis and Smith are Welsh qualified, Jarvis has a Welsh Grandmother and Smiths father is from Wrexham. IMO the fault in the DP case is himself, he should have had it written into his contract especially when it was renewed, but as NO REGION CAME IN FOR HIM, he was not in a very strong negotiating position. He made his bed he should now lay in it. As for the WRU position, I fully endorse it, governing bodies deal with governing bodies, you only deal with lesser companies within your own jurisdiction, if players want to go for the money, go but forget your international ambitions until you come back.

Unfortunately the IRB don't agree with you. They specify that any union wanting extra time with players must deal with the club/team in question. The Premiership clubs formed the PRL to act as a combined body, to act on their behalf (a body copied by the regions in the RRW - not that I'm claiming PRL is the first). The RFU has absolutely no say in the release of players from their clubs outside of the international window. Why the WRU have said they'll only deal through the RFU I don't know. Maybe they mean as a middle man. Or possibly they haven't a clue what they're doing. With the WRU you never know.

The problem with the prl is that it appears that it is run by a few english clubs serving their will and not all who regularly rank below those clubs in the AP.

Take the forum of sale rfc. most of the sale fans are more worried that if Sale dont tow the WRUs line then Peel will leave and leave them with no decent half backs.

Peel has already been linked with a move to other clubs, mainly Lyon.

The RFU have no control over the PRL. And that will cause English rugby further problems.

maesteg, you're changing the angle of your article every post

Thunor (among others) has shown you where you've posted inaccuracies or plain speculation.

maestegmafia wrote:The problem with the prl is that it appears that it is run by a few english clubs serving their will and not all who regularly rank below those clubs in the AP.

Take the forum of sale rfc. most of the sale fans are more worried that if Sale dont tow the WRUs line then Peel will leave and leave them with no decent half backs.

Peel has already been linked with a move to other clubs, mainly Lyon.

The RFU have no control over the PRL. And that will cause English rugby further problems.

It's been the same problem for ages and he signed a new contract. I'd don't think he's that bothered by it.

So now foreign players leaving English clubs due to not being released is a problem? You've changed you're tune a bit.

The Joe Bearman case may be a good example here. The Ospreys are usually pretty good at attracting players, both Welsh and Overseas, I guess due to the resources they have at their disposal for wages, etc. The Dragons can't normally compete in terms of wages, aspirations, facilities, etc. Now, I'm sure the Ospreys could have tempted Toby Faletau, Ben Morgan, etc. if they really tried. But did they try? They went for Joe Bearman instead who is injury prone and had become second choice at the Dragons. Did they end up going for someone who would be around all season (injuries permitting)? I think so. Maybe they didn't get Bearman to agree to it, but perhaps they rolled the dice and thought they'd chance their luck that they were getting a solid player who wouldn't go away for large chunks of the season on international duty.

Any contact saying that a player will not play international rugby (in the IRB window) doesn't mean anything. Any team trying to get a player not to play by contract can be kicked out of rugby.

maestegmafia wrote:The problem with the prl is that it appears that it is run by a few english clubs serving their will and not all who regularly rank below those clubs in the AP.

Actually that isn't the case - the top clubs are in near constant dispute with it over the salary cap where the will of the lower clubs keeps it in place and limits increases to below inflation and also have forced a smoothing effect on the payments clubs recieve from the RFU for providing England players to the national set up. The PRL is vital for the smaller clubs and they make good use of it to limit the bigger clubs.

maestegmafia wrote:Take the forum of sale rfc. most of the sale fans are more worried that if Sale dont tow the WRUs line then Peel will leave and leave them with no decent half backs.

I looked on there - the majority seemed to support the PRL's stance.

maestegmafia wrote:Peel has already been linked with a move to other clubs, mainly Lyon.

Surely that is good news for English rugby? Forcing NEQs out of the Premiership and detering them from joining AP clubs is a bad thing now?

maestegmafia wrote:The RFU have no control over the PRL. And that will cause English rugby further problems.

It is very, very similar to the situation in Wales - both the RFU and WRU use payments to control the clubs/ regions. Thank you for your concern though but perhaps it would be better directed at the Welsh set up where Gatland was recently conceded that there were real problems in his relationship with the Ospreys? At least in England one bad club is one out of twelve, in Wales one bad region is one out of four with is a much bigger problem