Rugby in crisis: potential strike amid injury and mental health fears

Players and officials have voiced their concerns over injuries and player welfare following proposals to extend the English Premiership rugby union season to ten months.

In March, Premiership Rugby welcomed the plans from World Rugby to kick off the season at the beginning of September from 2019-20, with the Premiership Final to be played at the end of June.

That would leave only July and August for rest and pre-season conditioning.

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Leicester’s Tom Youngs told the BBC that the plan for an extended season “fills players with dread”. Northampton lock Christian Day called the proposals “upsetting”, while the Rugby Players’ Association (RPA) - of which Day is chairman - “unanimously rejected” the plans.

Potential strike action

One of the biggest stars to speak out on the issue is England and Saracens No. 8 Billy Vunipola, who has warned that players could go on strike. His England colleague Joe Marler told The Daily Telegraph that he would also back strike action.

In an interview with The Times last month, Vunipola said his body could “not handle” a nine-month season, let alone ten months. Vunipola missed last season’s Six Nations and the British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand after undergoing surgery on his knee and shoulder, and has since suffered another knee injury, leavng him facing four more months on the sidelines.

This week former Rugby Football Union (RFU) director of professional rugby Rob Andrew echoed Vunipola’s warnings over strike action. He told the BBC that a player strike to protest the extended season was “feasible”.

“What’s giving in is the players’ bodies - that’s not sustainable long term,” said Andrew. “Something will give, and eventually if the players decide not to turn out then there isn’t much of a product. We’re trying to fit too much in, with the same players being asked to repeat over and over again in a very demanding sport.

“I think the players will have a big say over the next 12 to 18 months to try to find this holy grail.”

Physical, psychological and mental overload

When the RPA first rejected the new plans back in May, it said in a statement that the reduction of the domestic off-season from three months to two “will have a seriously detrimental effect on player welfare unless substantial guaranteed safeguards are introduced”.

Speaking at last week’s Leaders in Sport summit in London, RPA chief executive Damian Hopley told The Week that it’s not just the physical aspects of rugby that can be demanding, but also the mental health effects on players.

“We launched our mental health campaign in February this year,” said Hopley, “and about 30% of our membership have talked about mental health issues.”

“Actually, it’s not just the physical [pressures], it’s the psychological and mental load that is put on the players.

“I think it is the psychological blow that we are most concerned about. If you have got a shorter off-season, will the players be able to recuperate, refresh and recover in time?”

Asked how the proposed extended season would be structured, he said: “We’ve heard lots of different people coming out saying it [the extended season] will be better for the players, but in the absence of anything concrete, we’re all scratching around wondering what it will look like.”

“The fact that you’ve had a number of players speaking out unprompted just shows you the strength of feeling amongst the players. We’re all crying out for less rather than more.”

A cut in player salaries?

Vunipola has said he would take a pay cut if it meant playing less rugby and prolonging his career. Premiership clubs have a salary cap, which can hamper having bigger squads.

Discussing the possibility of reducing players’ wages, Hopley said: “In an ideal world, we all want to get paid more and play less - but it’s a very valid point. Recently some of the players said they would take a pay cut if they knew they were going to be playing for three or four years - not just getting absolutely squeezed for two years and then that would be it.”

The RPA chief added that concerns over the extended season relate more to the players involved in first-team rugby than to those in the Elite Player Squad (EPS).

“I think the issue here is probably not so much about the EPS players - who are probably the best paid and best looked after - but it’s about your first-team players, who are there for 41 weeks of the season,” said Hopley.

“It’s about the 600 regular players, not the 50 elite players at the moment, for what the new season structure looks like.

“All the data is saying we should have bigger squads, but then you have salary cap restraints. The majority of the clubs are losing money year-on-year, so that’s why I just feel there probably a bit more blue-sky thinking about how we can work through to find the right solution.

“Players want to earn as much as they can, owners want to win and you can absolutely get that - but they need to take Billy’s point [and ask]: ‘Would I take a pay cut to actually extend my career?’ I think that’s a mature view to it.”

Finding a solution

The next step should be to get around the table and thrash out a solution that suits all parties, says Hopley.

“We have a professional game board at the end of November with representatives of the RFU, Premiership Rugby, ourselves and the Championship,” he explained. “We see that as the forum.

“That has to be the right way forward to find the solution. In an ideal world, this would all get resolved by the end of the year so everyone can get on and start planning for 2019-20.

“The [sport] has never been better, despite the injury situation. The first five weeks of the Premiership have been extraordinary and the Lions [tour of New Zealand] was fantastic and a real shot in the arm for the game.

“So there’s a lot of really good stuff going on but, unfortunately, people only tend to focus on the negative stuff, because that is what makes the headlines.”