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Exeter had sit down with players over salary cap controversy
By Online Editors
Exeter director of rugby Rob Baxter put the debate over Saracens’ salary cap controversy to his players this week in an effort to ‘clear the decks’ before this weekend’s Premiership action.
Saracens were docked 35 points and fined more than £5million after being found guilty by Premiership Rugby of over-spending on players’ wages but both penalties were suspended pending the outcome of an appeal.
That means the saga will rumble on into 2020 and Baxter, whose side lost the last two Premiership finals to Saracens, is keen for his players to move on and put their focus on the field, starting with Sunday’s home game against Bristol.
“We’ve actually just cleared the decks a little bit in our meeting,” said Baxter. “I just sat in front of all the players and said ‘what do you think of all this salary cap stuff?’
“At first, they all looked at me a bit strangely but I know they’ve all been talking about it and I know they will all feel differently about it all.
“Across the board, there are all kinds of emotions, but what I’ve said to them all is ‘let’s make sure we clarify what we are all about’.
“We are a club that have an important Premiership game this Sunday. We’ve worked very hard to be here and this is what should occupy all of our energy.”
Exeter are boosted by the return of England’s World Cup players Henry Slade, Luke Cowan-Dickie and Jack Nowell while Bristol will give scrum-half Harry Randall his first Premiership start of the season.
New Zealand back-rower Jordan Taufua will make his Leicester debut in Sunday’s visit to London Irish.
Taufua arrived in the country last week after ending his season in New Zealand with a Mitre10 Cup to go with his Super Rugby title win and goes straight into the Tigers line-up.
Leicester coach Geordan Murphy said: “Like Tomas Lavanini last week, sometimes the best way to integrate a player is to get them into a match situation.
“Jordan is an experienced player, he’s a winner and we want him involved as quickly as we can.”
Murphy says the Tigers’ six England players who have returned from the World Cup have not been considered for selection this week.
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Latest Comments
Danny don't care. He pretends to care but he don't. He says all this stuff to justify his reasoning but no one can claim that legitimately. He knew exactly what he was doing and wondered if his old team mate would overlook it, which he did. Ref has got to be sidelined or properly trained. It's one thing for refs to move up the ranks but if it was me I would require refs to either have played in different clubs or not at all having the temptation to bias in high stakes games like this. This has got to be stamped out. But then again World Rugby is so destroying the game of rugby in an attempt to be more “safe” and “concussion free”. What they are doing is making it more infuriating for the fans and more difficult for the refs to officiate evenly and consistently. It's fast become Australian Rules football. If guys don't want concussions, they should have played chess. Stop complaining you oldies of the game. When they played the game was vastly heavier hitting than it is now but of course they can't see that.
Go to commentsJa, why do Bulls get flack for not bringing their best but Leinster never bring their best and it goes “unnoticed”?
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