Saracens Salarygate: Automatic Relegation?

lawrencesummers · 26-01-2020 12:52pm

sydthebeat wrote: »

I think you're inadvertently agreeing with my point.

There are a lot of people who associate a certain gravitas to a media outlet, and this the writers they have.
Because of this, the likes of Jones, Francis, etc should be called out whenever it's warranted.

Otherwise how does the average Joe KNOW that they are just pay packet leeching contrarians.

If one doesn’t question a journalist because of the paper he writes for then they have a problem. Just because joe Duffy works for RTÉ doesn’t make him reputable like the team on RTE investigates / prime time are. Most people can separate the individual from the organisation, people didn’t have an issue with the daily mirror / NOTW they had a problem with piers Morgan.

Clegg · 26-01-2020 4:24pm

They're losing 0-17 to Harlequins after 22 minutes.

razorblunt · 26-01-2020 4:36pm

Clegg wrote: »

They're losing 0-17 to Harlequins after 22 minutes.

Harlequins lucky not to have got a yellow before Sarries scored but all sympathy is gone as a) it’s Sarries and b] Lozowski jumped into a tackle and rolled to score.

Clegg · 26-01-2020 5:22pm

34-14 Harlequins

Clegg · 26-01-2020 5:39pm

Dombrandt has been excellent. Best forward on the pitch. Would like to know what Jones doesn't fancy about his game.

Clegg · 26-01-2020 5:41pm

41-14 Harlequins. Saracens pushing to keep the ball in play and get a try. Their player throws a speculative offload, it's intercepted and Harlequins run over.

Dave_The_Sheep · 26-01-2020 5:47pm

That must be tasty for Quins fans in the stadium.

sydthebeat · 26-01-2020 5:51pm

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

That must be tasty for everybody but sarries fans.

FYP

Squidgy Black · 26-01-2020 5:58pm

Some performance by Quins, really shows the gap between the Premiership and the championship!

BonnieSituation · 26-01-2020 6:04pm

Marcus Smith was unplayable. Fantastic watch.

razorblunt · 26-01-2020 6:11pm

The veil is slipping big time at Sarries. Jackson Wray stood down by Luke Pearce as captain with 2 mins left as he felt their communication had broken down. He was right too. Talk about being put in your place.

Squidgy Black · 26-01-2020 6:16pm

razorblunt wrote: »

The veil is slipping big time at Sarries. Jackson Wray stood down by Luke Pearce as captain with 2 mins left as he felt their communication had broken down. He was right too. Talk about being put in your place.

Brutal stuff by Wray. Refusing to talk to Pearce and just chatting back to him when Pearce asked if he wanted to work with him.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/comments/eu95lc/luke_pearce_relegates_wray_from_being_captain_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Buer · 26-01-2020 6:25pm

The place must be in complete disarray. It'll be interesting to see how they manage to steady the ship in the coming weeks. I don't care if they have a rake of stars to come back after the 6N...if the place is toxic, they can't just flick a switch to fix that. It needs to be addressed now.

It was a heavily weakened side but there's not a hope in hell that selection has 40 put on them by Quins a month ago. It still had multiple capped players throughout. I expected it to be a relatively close contest.

sydthebeat · 26-01-2020 6:44pm

Bookies only had 2 points between them before the game.

You'd have to question how a player can be mentally with nothing to play for before a game.

Squidgy Black · 26-01-2020 6:54pm

Buer wrote: »

The place must be in complete disarray. It'll be interesting to see how they manage to steady the ship in the coming weeks. I don't care if they have a rake of stars to come back after the 6N...if the place is toxic, they can't just flick a switch to fix that. It needs to be addressed now.

It was a heavily weakened side but there's not a hope in hell that selection has 40 put on them by Quins a month ago. It still had multiple capped players throughout. I expected it to be a relatively close contest.

Wasn't even a full strength Quins team either. Missing Chisolm, Campagnaro, Sinckler, Marler, Ibitoye.

razorblunt · 26-01-2020 7:05pm

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Brutal stuff by Wray. Refusing to talk to Pearce and just chatting back to him when Pearce asked if he wanted to work with him.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/comments/eu95lc/luke_pearce_relegates_wray_from_being_captain_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Lost his head big time.
Pearce was well able for him and Sarries in general, they were a bit boisterous in the first half but he slapped them down.

BonnieSituation · 26-01-2020 7:13pm

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Brutal stuff by Wray. Refusing to talk to Pearce and just chatting back to him when Pearce asked if he wanted to work with him.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/comments/eu95lc/luke_pearce_relegates_wray_from_being_captain_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Love this comment underneath:

"At this point it's just a discriminatory witch hunt conspiracy against anyone named Wray."

-Stephen Jones, probably.

---

I must say I've really warmed to Pearce as a ref over the last year or so.

His performances have been top drawer.

lawrencesummers · 26-01-2020 7:33pm

razorblunt wrote: »

Lost his head big time.
Pearce was well able for him and Sarries in general, they were a bit boisterous in the first half but he slapped them down.

Luke Pearce is a brilliant ref. I felt he should have been given more responsibility at the World Cup, he is always calm and collected and I’ve never seen him have a bad game. His demeanour is positive and he listens and talks well with players

thomond2006 · 26-01-2020 8:07pm

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Brutal stuff by Wray. Refusing to talk to Pearce and just chatting back to him when Pearce asked if he wanted to work with him.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/comments/eu95lc/luke_pearce_relegates_wray_from_being_captain_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Feed me more.

Exclamation Marc · 26-01-2020 8:18pm

sydthebeat wrote: »

Bookies only had 2 points between them before the game.

You'd have to question how a player can be mentally with nothing to play for before a game.

I think a lot of these players do have something to play for and that's a transfer at the end of the season. You imagine most if not all are in the shop window or being walked out so they'll need to show that they'd be good acquisitions otherwise they'll find it hard to find a club next year.

thomond2006 · 26-01-2020 8:20pm

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

I think a lot of these players do have something to play for and that's a transfer at the end of the season. You imagine most if not all are in the shop window or being walked out so they'll need to show that they'd be good acquisitions otherwise they'll find it hard to find a club next year.

I imagine once they agree a deal elsewhere they'll phone it in or do the minimum while still at Saracens.

26-01-2020 9:05pm

Stolen from Reddit, gave me a good laugh anyhow

pickarooney · 26-01-2020 10:23pm

That Vahaamahina meme is going to get a new lease of life.

Buer · 27-01-2020 10:24am

Reports on Saracens forum on a number of their players and who is interested in them:

Ben Spencer (Bath and Exeter); Alex Lozowski (Gloucester and Sale); Nick Isiekwe (Harlequins); Max Malins (Exeter); Nick Tompkins (Ospreys); Matt Gallagher (Munster); Rhys Carre (Cardiff); George Kruis (Japan); Jack Singleton (Leicester).

Spencer to Bath would make a lot of sense for them. It's a significant weakness for them. Based on the above, it would appear that Saracens are hoping to retain the majority of their big name stars and it's the guys who just a tier below that who are potentially on their way out. The majority of the above are still capped internationals with a lot of quality.

If they offloaded the above along with Liam Williams, I could very easily see them being under the salary cap. They could absorb a lot of the above too without damaging their starting team too much also although Spencer would be a big loss given Wigglesworth is on the verge of retirement. It would definitely hurt them for the test windows though. I would imagine a number of academy guys will be seeing a lot of game time next season to blood them for the return to the top flight.

Zzippy · 27-01-2020 10:27am

Buer wrote: »

Reports on Saracens forum on a number of their players and who is interested in them:

Ben Spencer (Bath and Exeter); Alex Lozowski (Gloucester and Sale); Nick Isiekwe (Harlequins); Max Malins (Exeter); Nick Tompkins (Ospreys); Matt Gallagher (Munster); Rhys Carre (Cardiff); George Kruis (Japan); Jack Singleton (Leicester).

Spencer to Bath would make a lot of sense for them. It's a significant weakness for them. Based on the above, it would appear that Saracens are hoping to retain the majority of their big name stars and it's the guys who just a tier below that who are potentially on their way out. The majority of the above are still capped internationals with a lot of quality.

If they offloaded the above along with Liam Williams, I could very easily see them being under the salary cap. They could absorb a lot of the above too without damaging their starting team too much also although Spencer would be a big loss given Wigglesworth is on the verge of retirement. It would definitely hurt them for the test windows though. I would imagine a number of academy guys will be seeing a lot of game time next season to blood them for the return to the top flight.

Reportedly they will have to spend two seasons in the Championship, if they cannot prove compliance with the salary cap for this season. Can't see the big stars staying around for that.

Buer · 27-01-2020 10:33am

Zzippy wrote: »

Reportedly they will have to spend two seasons in the Championship, if they cannot prove compliance with the salary cap for this season. Can't see the big stars staying around for that.

Fair point. It's all very quiet on that front though. It was discussed a lot initially but mainly on social media and I haven't seen any official comment on it or it gain much traction in the print media.

If they're going to be gone for 2 years, I would have expected it to be a lot more pointedly discussed at this point.

Iscreamkone · 27-01-2020 10:33am

I always thought that the IRFU funding multiple teams was a little iffy too. No way would someone be allowed to bankroll competing football teams.
Often, say Leinster players are rested on orders from up high - this could benefit their opponents say Munster who are also run by the IRFU.
The optics are not good imo

aloooof · 27-01-2020 10:50am

Iscreamkone wrote: »

I always thought that the IRFU funding multiple teams was a little iffy too. No way would someone be allowed to bankroll competing football teams.
Often, say Leinster players are rested on orders from up high - this could benefit their opponents say Munster who are also run by the IRFU.
The optics are not good imo

I think this came up before (possibly when Altrad tried to buy Gloucester?) and as far as I can recall, World Rugby's response was essentially that it's a different scenario as the IRFU are the union and have much more of a vested interest in growing the game.

Former Former · 27-01-2020 10:53am

Zzippy wrote: »

Reportedly they will have to spend two seasons in the Championship, if they cannot prove compliance with the salary cap for this season. Can't see the big stars staying around for that.

I don't believe this will be the case. The rules were not written for this scenario and it would be punishing them twice over for the same offence.

Zzippy · 27-01-2020 11:04am

Former Former wrote: »

I don't believe this will be the case. The rules were not written for this scenario and it would be punishing them twice over for the same offence.

Considering they've been over the cap for 5 of the last 6 seasons, I don't think too many people would shed a tear about that. You're probably right on the first point, PRL will find a way around the regulation that states teams must show compliance with the cap for the previous two seasons in order to be promoted. Sarries are too big a draw wrt TV etc to be allowed languish in the Championship for two years.

Saracens Salarygate: Automatic Relegation?

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