Mass postponements tarnish Premiership A League

Just a few short weeks into the season and the Premiership’s A League is already coming in for heavy criticism.

The competition, which has been expanded for this season from five games to 10, has seen four games postponed in the last week alone.

Bath were the first to postpone a fixture, rescheduling their match with Harlequins due to the significant number of injuries in their squad.

Harlequins will not only have to find space for that fixture later in the season, but also their clash with Saracens, which was due to go ahead today, but has been postponed by “mutual agreement”.

Leicester Tigers have also postponed their game with Newcastle Falcons this week, with “player welfare concerns” cited as the reason, whilst Sale Sharks have rearranged today’s game with Worcester Warriors for March 19th.

Sale have not given a reason in an official release for the game’s postponement – or even an update on their website to let fans know – but Worcester have confirmed the new date for the fixture.

There is no doubt the Premiership is suffering from an injury crisis at the moment and late injuries to front rowers for both Harlequins and Leicester explain their decisions to postpone this week, but it is not a good look for the league.

Bath owner Bruce Craig is reportedly spearheading the move for the A League to be expanded to a full 22-game season schedule to mirror the Premiership, but if clubs are struggling to field sides in the current 10-match format, the prospects of an increase do not look promising.

With player wages rising faster than ever and the salary cap set at a sustainable level, there are challenges in fielding a squad large enough to compete in two competitions per week, but it is a problem exacerbated by sides who do not allocate the funds for a sizeable senior academy.

The quantity-quality balance is not an easy one to manage but as stands, the A League looks an increasingly difficult competition to sustain, let alone expand to a full 22-game schedule.

UPDATE: Sale’s Academy Transition coach Neil Briggs confirmed that Sale were preparing to play the fixture before Worcester contacted the club and informed Sale that they were unable to field a team.