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'I was a Falcons fan growing up, they are my club,' enthuses Callum Chick after handshake with Dean Richards
By Online Editors
Homegrown back row Callum Chick is the latest Newcastle Falcons player to sign newly-extended terms with the club.
The 22-year-old was a Junior World Championship winner with England Under-20s in 2016, coming through the ranks at Ponteland RFC before moving onto the Falcons’ scheme at Gosforth academy.
Following in the footsteps of his father Brian, who played for the club under their previous name of Gosforth, this season saw Chick score the winning try in Newcastle’s remarkable Heineken Champions Cup comeback at home to French giants Montpellier.
Falcons director of rugby Dean Richards said: “Callum is a very talented player who has already proven himself capable at the very top level of the club game.
“He reads the game well, he has a fantastic skill set and has shown a huge level of maturity in his performances for us, so it’s fantastic news that another top homegrown player has committed their future here.”
Chick, who has featured in 21 games this season for the club, said: “I was a Falcons fan growing up. This has always been my club and it’s great to have been able to extend my contract here.
“We have a huge pool of back row talent and it’s a privilege being able to learn from those guys every single day. I just want to continue becoming a better player, and I know this is the best place for me to do that.”
Relegation threatened Falcons are currently in the middle of producing their own version of The Great Escape.
They had won just three of their first 14 matches in the Premiership this season and were odd-on to be relegated at the end of the campaign.
However, they have won their last three games, beating Worcester, Wasps and Sale in quick succession to leave them just three points off safety with five games remaining.
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Latest Comments
The only benefit of the draft idea is league competitiveness. There would be absolutely no commercial value in a draft with rugby’s current interest levels.
I wonder what came first in america? I’m assuming it’s commercial aspect just built overtime and was a side effect essentially.
But the idea is not without merit as a goal. The first step towards being able to implement a draft being be creating it’s source of draftees. Where would you have the players come from? NFL uses college, and players of an age around 22 are generally able to step straight into the NFL. Baseball uses School and kids (obviously nowhere near pro level being 3/4 years younger) are sent to minor league clubs for a few years, the equivalent of the Super Rugby academies. I don’t think the latter is possible legally, and probably the most unethical and pointless, so do we create a University scene that builds on and up from the School scene? There is a lot of merit in that and it would tie in much better with our future partners in Japan and America.
Can we used the club scene and dispose of the Super Rugby academies? The benefit of this is that players have no association to their Super side, ie theyre not being drafted elshwere after spending time as a Blues or Chiefs player etc, it removes the negative of investing in a player just to benefit another club. The disadvantage of course is that now the players have nowhere near the quality of coaching and each countries U20s results will suffer (supposedly).
Or are we just doing something really dirty and making a rule that the only players under the age of 22 (that can sign a pro contract..) that a Super side can contract are those that come from the draft? Any player wanting to upgrade from an academy to full contract has to opt into the draft?
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You’ve got the perfect structure to run your 1A and 1B on a quota of club representation by Province. Have some balance/reward system in place to promote and reward competitiveness/excellence. Say each bracket has 12 teams, each province 3 spots, given the Irish Shield winner once of the bottom ranked provinces spots, so the twelve teams that make up 1A are 4 from Leinster, 3 each from Connacht and Munster, and 2 from Ulster etc. Run the same rule over 1B from the 1A reults/winner/bottom team etc. I’d imagine IRFU would want to keep participation to at least two teams from any one province but if not, and there was reason for more flexibility and competitveness, you can simply have other ways to change the numbers, like caps won by each province for the year prior or something.
Then give those clubs sides much bigger incentive to up their game, say instead of using the Pro sides for the British and Irish Cup you had going, it’s these best club sides that get to represent Ireland. There is plenty of interest in semi pro club cup competitions in europe that Ireland can invest in or drive their own creation of.
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