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37 of last season's Premiership players still have no new contract

Virimi Vakatawa in the Bristol colours last season (Photo by Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)

The Rugby Players’ Association have confirmed that an entire squad’s worth of last season’s Gallagher Premiership players – including Virimi Vakatawa – are still without a contract just three weeks before the start of the 2024/25 season.

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Of the 185 players who left their top-flight clubs at the end of last season, 70 had no contract to move on to – a total slightly down from last summer’s record high of 80 left in the lurch.

With the new campaign commencing on September 20 with defending champions Northampton visiting beaten finalists Bath and Bristol due to travel to last season’s strugglers Newcastle, 37 of the 70 players left without a contract at the start of this summer are still hunting for a new deal.

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The list features several high-profile players, including former France midfielder Vakatawa. He was released by Pat Lam’s Bristol after just a single season at Ashton Gate.

This lack of opportunity for so many players illustrates how employment opportunities in English rugby’s top flight continue to narrow following the devastating effects of Worcester, Wasps and London Irish going bust throughout the 2022/23 season, reducing the league from 13 to 10 teams.

Fixture
Gallagher Premiership
Bath
38 - 16
Full-time
Northampton
All Stats and Data

Luke Cheyne, head of player development and well-being at the RPA, explained: “In the last few years we have lost three squads; 187 players were effectively made redundant and those contracts are effectively no longer available.

“This season we are still feeling the effects of everything that happened in 2022/23 with Wasps, Worcester and London Irish, salary cap changes and so on and so forth.

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“We have seen the change to smaller squad sizes, which is a sensible one, and there will probably be a little bit of difficulty whilst those changes happen.”

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AM 38 minutes ago
'Freelancer' Izaia Perese shows the need for true inclusivity in Australian rugby

That's Cron's job though. Australia has had one of the most penalised scrums in international rugby for a long time. Just look at the scrum win loss percentage and scrum penalties. That is your evidence. AA has been the starter during that period. Pretty simple analysis. That Australia has had a poor scrum for a long time is hardly news. If bell and thor are not on the field they are woeful. So you are just plain wrong. They have very little time for the lions so doing the same old things that dont work is not going to get them there.


Ainsley is better than our next best tighthead options and has been playing well at scrum time for Lyon in the most competitive comp in the world. Superstar player? No. But better than the next best options. So that is a good enough guide. The scrummaging in the Prem is pretty good too so there is Sio's proof. Same analysis for him. Certainly better in both cases than Super, where the brumbies had the worst win loss and scrum pen in Super. Who plays there? Ohh yes... And the level of scrummaging in Super is well below the URC, prem and France with the SA teams out.


Nongorr is truly woeful. He's 130kg and gets shoved about. That just should not be happening at that weight for a specialist prop who has always played rugby cf pone with leauge. He has had enough time to develop at 23. You'd be better off with Pone who is at least good around the field for the moment and sending Nongorr on exchange to France or England to see if they can improve him with better coaching as happened with Skelton and Meafou. He isn't going to develop in time in super if he has it at all.


Latu is a better scrummaging hooker than BPA and Nasser. and he's the best aussie player over the ball at ruck time. McReight's super jackling percentage hasnt converted to international level but latu consistently does it at heniken level, which is similar to test level in the big games. With good coaching at La Rochelle he's much improved though still has the odd shocker. He should start the November games.

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