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English club target Liam Williams for Premiership return

Liam Williams of Wales celebrates with team mates after scoring a try during the International Test Match between Australia Wallabies and Wales at AAMI Park on July 13, 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Saracens have inquired about re-signing Wales and Lions star Liam Williams as they seek an injury replacement for injured veteran star Alex Goode, who could be out of action for the next three months.

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Saracens, fourth in the Premiership table, released a statement earlier this week stating that Goode would be out of action for between 10 and 12 weeks after undergoing an operation on a quad injury.

Goode, 36, picked up in the warm-up before a Premiership game against Leicester Tigers and Mark McCall has been looking to see who might be available to provide short-term injury cover.

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Swansea-born Williams, 33, has won 92 caps for his country and another six for the Lions on the 2017 trip to New Zealand and the 2021 tour to South Africa. He is highly regarded in North London.

He played 31 games for Saracens between 2017 and 2019, either side of spells with the Scarlets winning Premiership and European titles before returning to South Wales when his three-year contract ended.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time at Saracens over the past three seasons. The environment has undoubtedly developed me as a player. I am grateful for the support I’ve had from the players, management and supporters,” he said Williams is due to return to Kubota Spears next month to prepare for the start of the new Japan Rugby League One, which they kick off against Toyota Verblitz on December 22nd.

He moved to Japan after playing in his third World Cup and was linked with a return to Wales in September when the Dragons were rumoured to have been interested in signing him, but the move failed to materialise.

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Sarries – who finished fourth last season – are keen to get a deal done for their return to Gallagher Premiership action against bottom-of-the-table Newcastle Falcons at Kingston Park next Friday evening.

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J
JW 2 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

In another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.


First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.


They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.


Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.


Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.


That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup

207 Go to comments
J
JW 7 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I had a look at the wiki article again, it's all terribly old data (not that I'd see reason for much change in the case of SA).

Number Of Clubs:

1526

Registered+Unregistered Players:

651146

Number of Referees:

3460

Pre-teen Male Players:

320842

Pre-teen Female Player:

4522

Teen Male Player:

199213

Teen Female Player:

4906

Senior Male Player:

113174

Senior Female Player:

8489

Total Male Player:

633229

Total Female Player:

17917


So looking for something new as were more concerned with adults specifically, so I had a look at their EOY Financial Review.

The total number of clubs remains consistent, with a marginal increase of 1% from 1,161 to 1,167. 8.1.

A comparative analysis of verified data for 2022 and 2023 highlights a marginal decline of 1% in the number of female players, declining from 6,801 to 6,723. Additionally, the total number of players demonstrates an 8% decrease, dropping from 96,172 to 88,828.

So 80k+ adult males (down from 113k), but I'm not really sure when youth are involved with SAn clubs, or if that data is for some reason not being referenced/included. 300k male students however (200k in old wiki data).


https://resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2020/07/28/212ed9cf-cd61-4fa3-b9d4-9f0d5fb61116/P56-57-Participation-Map_v3.pdf has France at 250k registered but https://presse-europe1-fr.translate.goog/exclu-europe-1-le-top-10-des-sports-les-plus-pratiques-en-france-en-2022/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp has them back up at 300k registered.


The French number likely Students + Club, but everyone collects data different I reckon. In that WR pdf for instance a lot of the major nations have a heavily registered setup, were as a nation like England can penetrate into a lot more schools to run camps and include them in the reach of rugby. For instance the SARU release says only 29% of schools are reached by proper rugby programs, where as the 2million English number would be through a much much higer penetration I'd imagine. Which is thanks to schools having the ability to involve themselves in programs more than anything.


In any case, I don't think you need to be concerned with the numbers, whether they are 300 or 88k, there is obviously a big enough following for their pro scenes already to have enough quality players for a 10/12 team competition. They appear ibgger than France but I don't really by the lower English numbers going around.

207 Go to comments
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