1
Newcastle embrace radical tactic to ensure Gary Graham remains ready for Scotland
By Chris Jones
Newcastle boss Dean Richards has revealed the club will increase Covid-19 testing for flanker Gary Graham, who will be leaving the Scotland bubble to return for Gallagher Premiership matches during the Guinness Six Nations championship.
Wales head coach Wayne Pivac has made it clear he is unhappy with having to release players from his bubble so that they can play for Premiership clubs.
Gregor Townsend is also having to release his ten English-based players, a list headed by captain Stuart Hogg who will play for Exeter at Worcester on Saturday.
Hogg and the other Scotland players contracted to English clubs - including Newcastle's Graham, Gloucester’s Chris Harris, Harlequins' Scott Steele, Cameron Redpath at Bath and Exeter’s Jonny Gray - will then reassemble with the national squad at Oriam at the start of next week leading into the opening Six Nations game with England at Twickenham on February 6.
Richards has flanker Mark Wilson in camp with England throughout the Six Nations as Premiership clubs have agreed to let head coach Eddie Jones keep a maximum of 28 players in his bio-secure environment.
However, Richards will have Graham back for the away game with London Irish at Brentford on Sunday. He said: “Gary will be tested as part of the programme and we will also be doing lateral flow tests as well to keep on top of that and make sure that if there are any concerns we will be right on top of it.
“We will be doing the lateral flow test just for Gary who will be tested while he is with Scotland. He will be tested every day with us.” Premiership players have only recently started been tested twice weekly, but the Graham plan takes this to a new extreme.
Richards believes the Test level recognition for Graham and Wilson recognises the talent currently at Falcons who have moved up to second in the Premiership after winning promotion last season.
However, he wants even more players in the Test mix. “We have other players who are performing exceptionally well like George McGuigan and Trevor Davison and I'm surprised they haven’t been recognised. They are playing exceptionally well along with Sean Robinson.”
Trending on RugbyPass
2
All Blacks XV player ratings vs Munster
3
Suaalii strikes awe as Wallabies lose midfielder
4
Scott Robertson responds about handling errors
5
Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
Go to comments