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Gregor Townsend takes the Andy Farrell pay deferral route, unlike Eddie Jones who took pay cut

(Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

Scotland coach Gregor Townsend has agreed to a salary deferment as the Scottish Rugby Union accepts the coronavirus shutdown is likely to have major consequences for “some time to come”.

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Townsend, plus his counterparts at Glasgow and Edinburgh, Dave Rennie and Richard Cockerill, and SRU performance director Jim Mallinder have each agreed to a 25 per cent deferral.

Anger gripped Scotland in January after the revelation of what the SRU’s top executive was paid

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The deferral by the Scotland boss mirrors what Ireland’s Andy Farrell agreed with the IRFU rather than what happened in England where Eddie Jones agreed to a pay cut in excess of £187,500.

SRU sources insist that this is only the first step taken by the board and further measures – including making use of the government’s furloughing scheme and pay cuts for staff and players – may yet have to be considered the longer the shutdown goes on.

Scotland’s final Guinness Six Nations clash with Wales in Cardiff has already been shelved and may not be played until October.

And the SRU has also now admitted there are major doubts over whether the summer tour to South Africa and New Zealand will go ahead.

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Meanwhile, work on Edinburgh’s new 8,000-capacity stadium on Murrayfield’s back pitches has also been put on hold until after the government lifts its call for social distancing.

In a statement, the SRU said: “Various business scenarios are being considered in respect of resumption of professional and international rugby and detailed financial modelling activities are ongoing against each scenario.

“The board (has been) provided an update on PRO14, EPCR and Six Nations in respect of the challenges all these organisations that support our finances were also having.

“We are currently closely analysing the government support options being offered to organisations so that we will continue to feed this into informing our actions.

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“It was noted by the board that the evolving crisis gripping the country will have significant challenges for the game at all levels in Scotland for some time to come.

“Once the board has further considered the relevant information and its potential impacts it will share a further update with our staff and stakeholders.”

SRU chief executive Mark Dodson will defer 30 per cent of his wages from April 1 through to September 1. Critics have pointed out that the CEO – who was paid a total of £933,000 in wages and bonuses last year – has only agreed to suspend a chunk of his hefty salary rather than accept a pay cut for the duration of the pandemic threat.

WATCH: Finn Russell chats to Jim Hamilton in the latest episode of The Lockdown, the new RugbyPass series

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J
JW 43 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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