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Anthony Watson could be too pricey for London Irish

Leicester Tigers's Anthony Watson is tackled by London Irish's Ben Loader during the Gallagher Premiership Rugby match between Leicester Tigers and London Irish at Mattioli Woods Welford Road Stadium on November 27, 2022 in Leicester, United Kingdom. (Photo by Stephen White - CameraSport via Getty Images)

Declan Kidney, the London Irish director of rugby, says trying to bring England wing Anthony Watson back to club could be significantly hampered by the Premiership £5m salary cap.

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Watson is expected to leave Leicester at the end of the season with the arrival of Ollie Hassell-Collins from London Irish one of the reasons he is looking for a new club with a recent visit to Castres highlighting the player’s various options at the end of the season.

Watson started his senior career at Irish in 2011 before heading to Bath and then Leicester where his talents have earned more than 50 England caps and British and Irish Lions test recognition and the 29-year-old remains a key figure in Steve Borthwick’s plans for England’s Rugby World Cup challenge in France.

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However, his status also means he comes with a large wage requirement and with Irish being able to bring on quality young players such as Ben Loader and Henry Arundell, there are other considerations for Kidney to deal with. He said: “There are lots of players come to us through agents and before a big game (against Saracens on Sunday) I wouldn’t be going into speculation about one player.

“Anthony is playing well for Leicester and has played well for England and is an old boy at the club but like a lot of players you have to see who you can fit in the cap. He is a very good player and there are a lot of good players out there and I am also very happy with the group of players I have here. We have a few tough selection decision going into Sunday and when you look at our back three players overall it is not a case of who do pick it is who do you leave out is the hard part.

“We have some exceptionally good players and that is depth of squad we are trying to build up over recent years and why it is no surprise where we are. We just need to close out a few deals on the pitch.”

Tom Parton is one of the impressive Irish players that have come through their own system but he is off to Saracens at the end of the season adding to the need for Kidney to bolster his back line options.

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Irish are aiming for a top four finish but currently stand fifth with a game in hand over Northampton in fourth and must tackle leaders Saracens away on Sunday and former champions Exeter as they bid for a play-off spot. Irish have won their last three Premiership games against Saracens but Kidney is taking nothing for granted and has even allowed for 90 minutes to make the journey to North London. “That is the same time as going to Northampton!” he added. “Sarries are coming off two defeats and it has all the makings of a cracker of a match.”

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J
JW 30 minutes ago
How law changes are speeding up the game - but the scrum lags behind

Very good, now we are getting somewhere (though you still didn't answer the question but as you're a South African I think we can all assume what the answer would be if you did lol)! Now let me ask you another question, and once you've answered that to yourself, you can ask yourself a followup question, to witch I'm intrigued to know the answer.


Well maybe more than a couple of questions, just to be clear. What exactly did this penalty stop you from doing the the first time that you want to try again? What was this offence that stopped you doing it? Then ask yourself how often would this occur in the game. Now, thinking about the regularity of it and compare it to how it was/would be used throughout the rest of the game (in cases other than the example you gave/didn't give for some unknown reason).


What sort of balance did you find?


Now, we don't want to complicate things further by bringing into the discussion points Bull raised like 'entirety' or 'replaced with a ruck', so instead I'll agree that if we use this article as a trigger to expanding our opinions/thoughts, why not allow a scrum to be reset if that is what they(you) want? Stopping the clock for it greatly removes the need to stop 5 minutes of scrum feeds happening. Fixing the law interpretations (not incorrectly rewarding the dominant team) and reducing the amount of offences that result in a penalty would greatly reduce the amount of repeat scrums in the first place. And now that refs a card happy, when a penalty offence is committed it's going to be far more likely it results in the loss of a player, then the loss of scrums completely and instead having a 15 on 13 advantage for the scrum dominant team to then run their opposition ragged. So why not take the scrum again (maybe you've already asked yourself that question by now)?


It will kind be like a Power Play in Hockey. Your outlook here is kind of going to depend on your understanding of what removing repeat scrums was put in place for, but I'm happy the need for it is gone in a new world order. As I've said on every discussion on this topic, scrums are great, it is just what they result in that hasn't been. Remove the real problem and scrum all you like. The All Blacks will love zapping that energy out of teams.

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