It was the sight that no English rugby fan wanted to see. After 80 gruelling minutes at Welford Road last Sunday, Maro Itoje sunk to a knee, the lock clearly spent. It takes a lot to bow the England and Saracens captain but his exhaustion was clear; it was not just the strain of a gutsy Premiership win over Leicester taking its toll but the lingering impacts of a physically, emotionally and mentally draining Six Nations campaign, too.
English rugby’s iron man has played all 80 minutes of his side’s last 30 Six Nations games. Saracens’ win at Tigers was his 24th start of the season, a tally matched only by Northampton’s Tommy Freeman. Last season, encompassing the World Cup warm-ups and tour of New Zealand, Itoje’s campaign ran from 12 August to 13 July; this year, the 30-year-old will very much hope his final outing is in British and Irish Lions red in Sydney on 2 August.
In such a landscape, something has to give – and this weekend, it has. Itoje – plus club and country colleagues Jamie George, Ben Earl, Tom Willis and Elliot Daly – will play no part in Saracens’ Investec Champions Cup last-16 tie at Toulon. Under the new Professional Game Partnership (PGP) signed by the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Players’ Association in September, England’s Six Nations regulars must stand down from one of the first three fixtures after returning to their club. That same agreement does, though, set out a limit of 30 matches per season, a figure Itoje and others appear likely to blow past.
