Challenges of the salary cap
“This is the period when you are going to hear a lot of white noise. Clubs want to do the right thing by the players and if they aren’t able to keep them or afford to keep them it’s around the week just gone or the coming weeks where there are going to be some difficult conversations and some brilliant ones in equal measure with people moving on and forwarding their careers. That can bring distractions and noise around the changing rooms if you allow it. The ripple effect of the salary cap I believe will show through the team cohesion and ultimately the performance on the field. The teams who are able to manage that white noise better and are able to keep as tight as they were in the last weeks of pre-season are the ones who will start to come through over the next month before we split for the Six Nations.”
Tough decisions as a result of lower salary cap
“Yes. If you want to have a high quality squad you have to have a smaller squad. There are certainly players who we would have liked to have kept who we can’t retain because of the salary cap and that is happening now. A lot of the contracts they signed pre-Covid or at the beginning of Covid which allowed a 25% reduction in salary if they were to sign up then. With these contracts now coming to an end. If it was £5.8 million for the last couple of years plus that 25%, you are actually now losing another £1 million out of the cap realistically so that puts the squeeze on further. Most clubs will have roughly £1 million less to spend than they do now. We meet every week to discuss the cap and player retention and we are meeting after this media session.”
Leaning on youngsters
“With all change if you embrace it there is opportunity to get ahead of the curve and shake up the status quo. I have always wanted to invest in your homegrown young talent which was obvious when I first came in. But are you forced to do that now as well which I think is a really positive thing for the English game.”
Reflections on first half of season
“We have looked at it a few times and sometimes you have to take a step back. Performances have been under par the last couple of weeks and we have needed to see what the bigger picture looks like. We are satisfied with where we are in the bigger picture stakes but I wouldn’t say content. We feel like we have earnt and deserved the standing we have in the Premiership but we know there is still more growth in us and obviously we are not there because we have suffered a couple of defeats on the road in the last couple of weeks so there is still learning for us to do.”
Spoke to Richard Wigglesworth last week, knew when he coached him at Saracens that he was coaching material and had the ability to become a coach in the future, has a pragmatic, sharp rugby brain
Is this ‘Alex Sanderson’s’ team now?
“For me to say this is an Alex Sanderson team I am going to accept the credit for how well the team has performed at times. It truly is a group effort from the coaches we have and the players who are driving it as well. So it takes some bedding in for them to understand me and vice versa. There has been quite a big shift in terms of the personnel of the squad, less so the coaching staff. These players like Tom Roebuck. Raffi Quirke, Joe Carpenter, Bevan Rodd I can go on. They mature as well, so as they are maturing and growing the style and mentality of the team shifts with them as I have to. It’s a little bit more organic than me saying ‘Here’s my stamp, do it this way, jump this high’. It doesn’t really work like that. They are learning and growing together over the last six months to a style that is different from what it was. Still pragmatic but I would say a little more ambitious in what we do with the ball and yet it retains its physicality or has the ability to retain that physicality and hard-nosed northern grit which are the elements I am most proud of as that is what I leant into as a player but it has to be more than that. You can’t win anything big just off the back of brute force, I know that.
“I was fortunate playing and coaching at Saracens and then coming here I have been involved in two sides where my values and desires have been well-aligned with the players I have coached. I am yet to come to a scenario where I would have to completely change what I think is important about the wonderful game we are involved in.”
Moving on from defeat at Newcastle
“I put it over to the players. We always have a chat on the field after, fortunately most of those this season have been ones of congratulations. This one was a bit different but I think it is important that you are able to have those discussions, win or lose, as it means you are staying true to the process. So I said what do you think boys and that was what I was most encouraged by even if it didn’t come across in the post-match interview. Ben Curry said ‘let’s not take any of the decisions as the reason why, let’s not use the injuries in the warm-ups as an excuse, let’s look to each other in this circle and understand what we could have done better, reflecting on your own actions’. I thought that was brilliant as already even in the throes of frustration that we all felt the first response and reaction was to reflect inwardly. That is a big shift from this group, they are ready to own it.
“Then Jono, who has been a great leader for us, said ‘let’s not let the last two weeks derail our belief in what we are building and how good we are’. A keep the faith message which I also think is important because you live week-to-week in this game and judged thus. It’s off the back of that that I have asked them for a response because you can sit on it over Christmas and it can ruin that period or you can come in positively and move on from it, continue to support each other. I asked them to turn up with that positive attitude and they did so I have been really impressed with their maturity.”
OTHER NEWS
Delighted to have Luke James back, will battle it out with Joe Carpenter for starting 15 jersey
Will have conversation with new England head coach Steve Borthwick regarding George Ford, out of his control whether he gets called up for Six Nations
Absolutely buzzing for Friday night game at home against reigning champions Leicester to finish 2022
Paid tribute to the retiring Joe Simpson, ‘feels like he has been here 6 years not 6 months’, driving the whole squad this week to give him the send-off he deserves
INJURY UPDATE
Manu Tuilagi- back this week, hasn’t been his usual self the last couple of weeks due to nature of injury, but back in this week, galvanising people and ready to go
Bevan Rodd- freakish incident in the warm-up, popped a cartilage in between the ribs, not a long-term injury, usually 2-3 weeks
Tom Roebuck- another couple of weeks still
Joe Carpenter- nearly up for selection this week, could have played 50-60 minutes this week but not risked
Dan du Preez- metacarpal injury being looked at
Raffi Quirke and George Ford- Raffi back before George by a week or two, Raffi hopefully back for European games
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