Scottish tryscorer Harris to continue exile in Premiership
Fresh from scoring his first international try for Scotland, centre Chris Harris has signed a new two-year contract extension with Newcastle Falcons.
The 28-year-old Carlisle native dived over for his maiden test try during Saturday’s Six Nations victory over Italy, winning his seventh cap in the 33-20 triumph.
Harris has played 94 times for the Falcons, scoring two tries on his Premiership debut against Saracens back in December, 2014.
Speaking after signing his new deal, he said: “I’m really happy to commit once again to Newcastle Falcons.
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“They’ve been my one and only professional club, we have a great group of boys and I want to stay and be part of something special here.
“I know we’re in a tough spot at the moment in terms of our league position but I have absolute confidence in our ability to climb out of that, and to start afresh next season looking to finish where we know we can.”
Newcastle Falcons director of rugby Dean Richards added: “Chris is a very consistent performer who has worked hard to become a Premiership regular and earn full international honours.
“He is very strong in defence, he has the pace to trouble opposition defences and he provides a great link to the attacking talent we have out wide.
“It’s another endorsement of what we are doing that he sees his future here with us, joining the list of key players to have announced contract renewals.”
Other Falcons stars to have signed contract extensions in recent weeks include England flanker Mark Wilson, Samoan wing Sinoti Sinoti, Scotland flanker John Hardie, full-back Simon Hammersley, prop Sam Lockwood and hooker Kyle Cooper.
Newcastle Falcons are in action this Saturday when they travel to Northampton Saints in the semi-finals of the Premiership Rugby Cup.
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"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"
I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.
But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.
Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.
"I'm afraid to say"
Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!
Go to commentsYou are a very horrible man Ojohn. Brain injury perhaps?
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