Ludicrous talk of extending season has to stop, says Hamilton

Former Scotland international and double Premiership champion and European Cup winner with Saracens, Jim Hamilton, has labelled the suggestion of an extended season “ludicrous” and called for the idea to be taken off the table.

Speaking on The Rugby Pod, the former lock, who retired in the summer after playing 27 games in the English top flight and the top tier of European competition in his final season, said he was hanging on at the end of his career and player welfare should be the number one priority.

“I’d love to have a bit of banter about this but I can’t. I think it’s ludicrous. I don’t know how you can extend the season any more,” he said.

“I’ve only been retired a few months and I was hanging on at the end of my career and to add more games to the season would be absolutely ridiculous.

“We talk about player welfare but this is where it needs to stand up and the suggestion should be kiboshed. There should be no chance whatsoever that the season can be extended.”

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Hamilton’s former Saracens teammate Jamie George, who was a guest on the Rugby Pod this week, made 39 appearances last season if you include the summer tour, autumn tests, Six Nations and British & Irish Lions tour as well as all domestic and European matches.

His workload is not out of the ordinary by any means and those not playing international rugby can be affected just as much, if not more. Joe Simpson played all 24 games for Wasps in the Premiership last season and another six in the Champions Cup, for example, while Marcel van der Merwe played 32 games for Toulon in all.

“I think we play double the amount of games that we should for the optimum level of a rugby player and to protect their safety,” said Hamilton.

“A lot of the England guys are now managed and get time off during the season but if you are a week in, week out kind of guy, you are getting flogged. Where is the player management?

“I’m not surprised that Billy Vunipola and others have spoken out. They cannot be expected to carry on like this for the sake of money and television.”

Hamilton was in Singapore last week filming a new series for RugbyPass and caught up with former Gloucester and England number eight James Forrester, who was forced to retire back in 2008 at the age of just 27.

“I’ve been talking to people about what their bodies are like two, three, four or five years after they’ve finished playing rugby and it’s actually quite ridiculous in terms of the state they’re in. James Forrester says he’s going to need to have his knee completely redone in the next few years and he can barely walk some mornings. He retired at 27-years-old and his knee is in that state,” he said.

“We have got a rugby players’ union, the RPA (Rugby Players’ Association), and this is where they make their money and where they hold their value for the players because you cannot expect players to play any more games.

“I’ll quite happily stand up to whoever is talking about this and to the suits who are drinking a pint of Guinness and talking about how it was back in the day.

“It’s just different now and I hope that the coaches and influencers, like Mark McCall, Damian Hopley at the RPA, Eddie Jones and others, stand up and say that it isn’t good enough.”