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Charles Piutau deal 'wrecking' Premiership rugby - Sale boss

Charles Piutau

Sale Sharks Director of Rugby Steve Diamond believes Charles Piutau’s record-breaking £1-million per season deal is “wrecking” Premiership rugby, inflating the value of player contracts too much.

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“If I am honest, and I don’t mind saying it, I think they are wrecking it,” he told The Sun.

“They are probably still in the salary cap, but it is madness. Madness. All the clubs are losing millions and it is a false number in the Premiership.

“Piutau must be the highest-paid player by a country mile. A good player that he is, I think they have paid him half a million quid too much.”

Piutau will become the game’s highest-paid player when he joins Bristol from Ulster next season, who are backed by billionaire Steve Lansdowne. Premiership clubs are permitted to sign two marquee players outside the cap of £7.5m.

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The Sale boss believes that the wage growth initiated by Piutau has flow-down effects that cannot be sustained, and admitted his club is losing money.

“Ultimately, it’s not football where there is hundreds of millions coming in through TV rights,” he said.

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“A lot of rugby clubs are losing money, we are losing a bit still, so we need to get that right and run it like a business.

“Those wages do inflate things, but we have to be careful of as owners and people who run the clubs as every time money comes in through broadcasting rights, players’ salaries go up.

“Of course players’ salaries are important. They earn a lot of money, but the businesses have to be solvent for us to grow the sport.”

Sale has been extremely active in player recruitment in the last few years, bringing in established overseas players such as James O’Connor, Faf De Klerk, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, Bryn Evans, TJ Ioane.

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fl 1 hour ago
What is the future of rugby in 2025?

Smith generally isn't well connected to his forward pods; doesn't do a great job of distributing to those around him; and has inferior positional and contestable kicking games than Ford and Fin.


When England have had success over the past few years, its been either through (i) defensive rugby backed up with smart tactical kicking or (ii) high possession attacking phase play based on quick ruck ball. George Ford was key to the implementation of (i) in the RWC, and in the 6N win over Wales, and to the implementation of (ii) in the 6N games against Ireland and France. Smith did great at (ii) when running at tired defenders at the end of the Ireland match, but has never successfully implemented that gameplan from the start of a test because he doesn't distribute or support his forwards enough to create consistent fast ball and build attacks over multiple phases. Instead, his introduction to the starting side has resulted in much more playmaking responsibilities being forced onto whoever plays 9. Alex Mitchell copes ok with that, but I think he looks better with a more involved playmaking 10 outside him, and it really isn't a gameplan that works for JVP or Spencer. As a result of that the outside backs and centres have barely touched the ball when Smith has been at 10.


This might not have been too much of a disaster, as England have seemed to be moving slightly towards the sort of attacking gameplan that France played under Labit and Quins play (I think this was especially their approach when they won the league a few years ago - but its still a part of their play now), which is based on kicking to create broken field rugby. This is (i) a sharp departure from the gameplans that have worked for England in the past few seasons; (ii) bears very little relation to the tactical approaches of the non-Quins players in the England team; and (iii) is an absolute disaster for the blitz defence, which is weak in transition. Unsurprisingly, it has coincided with a sharp decline in England's results.

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