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Barbarians swoop in to fill cancelled Worcester fixture

The Barbarians put smiles on faces with a show of enterprising rugby (Pic Getty Images)

Barbarians FC are to play a one-off game against Northampton Saints, replacing a now cancelled fixture against Worcester Warriors this November.

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Saints will play the famous invitational side on Saturday 26 November. The game will be played at 3pm and fans can then watch England’s international Test against South Africa around the stadium from 5.30pm.

The Barbarians have faced East Midlands sides at Franklin’s Gardens before, but this will be the first time the BaaBaas have taken on the Saints

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Northampton Chief Executive Mark Darbon believes this historic occasion will be a must-watch for rugby fans: “The Barbarians are rugby’s version of the Harlem Globetrotters, wowing their crowds whenever they play, so we are absolutely thrilled to confirm this historic fixture for next month,” he said.

“Worcester Warriors’ suspension from the Gallagher Premiership leaves a significant hole in our financial forecast, so the Club has acted swiftly to arrange another top-class game of rugby for this date, and we’re delighted with the outcome.

“I’m sure all our supporters will agree that watching the BaaBaas in Northampton is an incredible opportunity, and we are grateful to everyone at Barbarian F.C. for their support in organising the match at short notice. We’re looking forward to playing our part in creating a fantastic spectacle at cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens.”

Barbarian FC President John Spencer said: “This will be our first visit to Franklin’s Gardens since 2007, but the first time we have ever faced Saints on the pitch, which is incredibly exciting for everyone at the Barbarians. It is indeed a privilege to be invited to face the Black, Green and Gold.

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“We’re just beginning the process of assembling a squad for the game, and we’re confident of bringing a group that can dazzle a Northampton crowd with our world-famous BaaBaas skill, flair and passion come November 26.”

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J
JW 4 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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