Leading England players are exasperated that player welfare guidelines will be broken for a second season running, Telegraph Sport understands.
As part of the Professional Game Partnership between the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Players’ Association that came into effect last September, a new limit of 30 games per season was introduced.
However, stats from Opta show that Northampton back Tommy Freeman and prop Will Stuart have already played 25 games while England captain Maro Itoje, Saracens hooker Jamie George and Harlequins fly-half Marcus Smith are on 24.
There are five regular rounds of the Premiership season remaining plus domestic and European knockout games leading into the Lions tour and England’s tour to Argentina and the United States. Barring injury, all five are set to exceed the limit which is now being described as a guideline rather than a mandatory rule.
Last season, three England players Itoje – who could barely move following the conclusion of Saracens’ 29-22 victory over Leicester on Sunday – Freeman and Saracens hooker Theo Dan exceeded the previous limit which has led to a feeling of Groundhog Day among England’s star players. “It is a feeling of why the f--- are we here yet again?” a senior player said.
Saracens to rest England five for Champions Cup
Following Saracens’ victory, which keeps their play-off hopes alive, director of rugby Mark McCall confirmed that he would be standing down his senior England players – Itoje, George, Ben Earl, Elliot Daly and Tom Willis – for the last 16 Champions Cup match away to Toulon on Saturday. “We think it’s unwise not to rest them,” McCall said.
With Itoje a strong front runner to assume the role of Lions captaincy, he could easily end up breaking the old limit of 35 game involvements. This season Itoje has played 1856 minutes for club and country, second only to Freeman’s 1891. Over the past five seasons, La Rochelle and France No 8 Gregory Alldritt is the only forward on the planet to have played more minutes than Itoje.
Last week, England Rugby released a statement confirming that there will be a mandatory 10-week break for any players involved in the Lions tour, which would preclude them from playing in the first two rounds of next season’s Premiership.
A Player Load Management Group has been established featuring representatives from the RFU, PRL, the RPA and Team England, who represent the England men’s squad, to monitor the load of those players likely to exceed the limit.
Yet there remains considerable frustration among the playing group that no club or union has ever been admonished let alone punished for exceeding the guidelines and for all the good intentions the guidelines are essentially meaningless. Speaking last October, Itoje had hoped that he and other England players would not break the limit for a second season running.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily wise to be playing that amount of games every year,” Itoje said. “It is a bit of a ...
