Always a Wasp

In some professional business settings that would be gardening leave to stop him going to a competitor with up to date information.

It doesn't seen to fit here, though, so very strange.

'Although he will not officially depart until the end of the season, Walder will immediately step aside to allow Mark Laycock to take on the role.' Bit strange. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/64963047

I might well have this wrong, but if the Internationals are all away at Internationals and thus unavailable for the (rapidly diminishing number of) Premiership games, wouldn't their Club's owners get a bit brassed off at having to provide funds  to pay said players who they would rarely see and who had contributed  sweet nothing to the Club?  I would be very miffed.

Another thought on the 10 / 8 team league with off periods during the AI and 6N games.

One of the risks to player safety is not being match fit. As tiredness sets in the brain goes sluggish and tacklers start mistiming their hits, a danger to tackler and tackled. At the start of the season this might not be much of a problem as all players are equally unfit so perhaps aren't hitting as hard.

Now, imagine there's just been a 6 week break for the 6N, including the week leading up to it. What happens when the league resumes? We now have 30+ international standard players buzzing around the pitch hitting players who aren't match fit. As well as being dangerous this favours the clubs that supply the international players, distorting the league further.

Those clubs that don't have a lot of internationals are going to be desperate to get some game time, both for their players' match readiness and to fill the coffers, so so much for player welfare.

To counter this we will be told that international players have to take x games off, perhaps maybe the first 2 matches after the restart, which on the surface sounds reasonable. The problem is that it means club fans aren't going to see internationals, and rugby fans will want to see them even if playing for the opposition to see how well their own favourites are getting on, and it devalues the TV product.

As I said above, this is all knee jerk evidence policy making, nobody is sitting down and providing well argued reports, complete with data, to justify these assertions with the biggest tension that needs addressing being the club V country and the high and increasing numbers of internationals.

 

This seems very sensible. Some income, the facilities being used daily & maybe require some more staff to be hired? The Footie season ends in may so plenty of time for pre season training etc to start (fingers crossed) !!