'I'm a grown ass man' - Fans question why Billy Vunipola wasn't sent off for dissenting spray at Wayne Barnes
Exeter took revenge on arch-rivals Saracens in their first meeting since the salary-cap scandal broke but their 14-7 Gallagher Premiership victory was marred by a late red card for Harry Williams as tempers flared at Sandy Park.
In an intense defensive battle, the match reached boiling point in the 77th minute when a ferocious brawl broke out on the sideline which saw prop Harry Williams red-carded for joining the scuffle from the bench.
Whilst trying to settle the situation, Saracens' Number 8 Billy Vunipola had to be dragged away by teammates from referee Wayne Barnes, who issued multiple 'last chance' warnings to the England international for backchat.
Vunipola was lucky to not be given his marching orders by the experienced Barnes, with many online viewing his behaviour as deserving of a yellow card.
Vunipola's display of defiance marred what was an impressive performance for the Saracens' forward who carried hard and made a truckload of tackles.
For Exeter, the win avenged a Premiership final defeat last year and furthered their cause this season to claim a title after losing three finals in four years to Saracens. Two of those three defeats were deemed to be made when Saracens were not compliant with the salary cap.
Despite being docked 35 competition points, Saracens have still been one of the best sides in the Premiership with five wins from their opening six matches. Before Sunday's match, they held a better record than table-toppers Exeter but now both sides are 5-2 despite being at opposite ends of the ladder.
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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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