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No10 now the best paid position in the Premiership and Top 14, but it remains tough love for those at hooker

(Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)

Out-halves have become the best-paid players in the 2020/21 Gallagher Premiership and Top 14 rugby tournaments, with No10s checking in as third best paid in the Guinness PRO14, but hookers continued to be least rewarded as No2s prop up the player salaries table in both the PRO14 and Top14 and fare only marginally better in the Premiership. 

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The annual Esportif Intelligence report comparing the rugby player salaries by position across the three European leagues has in recent years become a major talking point when it is issued at this time every year.        

In season 2019/20, second rows were top of the pile in both the PRO14 and the Premiership. Locks have held onto that status as the best remunerated in the PRO14, but they have dropped back to second in England due to a rise in the average pay packet of the No10s which reflects well on the likes of Northampton’s Dan Biggar and Leicester’s George Ford.

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      Locks remain well paid in France, their value jumping from third to second position in the latest cross-tournament comparison of what rugby players in the 13 different positions annually earn in their salaries (locks 4 and 5 and wingers 11 and 13 are counted as one position in the survey).

      A major change in France is the value placed on wingers. Whereas a year ago they were the top salary earners in the Top 14, they check in at eighth position this time around. The highest rise in the French game was at blindside, rated tenth best in December 2019 and now the sixth-best paid position. 

      There were no huge positional changes year on year in the PRO14, the most significant being the drop in salary for No8s from second spot last term to fifth on this occasion, something perhaps for the likes of CJ Stander, the Ireland and Munster No8, to chew on given his deal is up for renewal.

      Switching to the Premiership, outside centre was the position that made the biggest jump in the rankings, moving from seventh to third, while wingers moved from eleventh-best to eighth. In contrast, scrum-halves fell from sixth-best paid to tenth.  

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      If there is a trend that should especially worry a particular position it is hooker which checked in as the worst paid position in France and in the PRO14 and the second-worst in England. It was also the worst-paid position in all three leagues last season and it was the least paid role in the Premiership and the PRO14 in 2018/19. It was eleventh best in France that season.

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      N
      NH 3 hours ago
      'The Wallabies need to convert much better - or Melbourne could be much worse'

      Nice one as always Brett. I think the stats hide a bit of the dominance the lions had, and they would look alot worse in that first half when the game was more in the balance. You mention it here but I think it hasn’t been talked about enough was the lineout. The few times the wallabies managed to exit their half and get an opportunity to attack in the 1st half, the lineout was lost. This was huge in terms of lions keeping momentum and getting another chance to attack, rather than the wallabies getting their chance and to properly ‘exit’ their half. The other one you touch on re “the will jordan bounce of the ball” - is kick chase/receipt. I thought that the wallabies kicked relatively well (although were beaten in this area - Tom L rubbish penalty kicks for touch!), but our kick receipt and chase wasn’t good enough jorgenson try aside. In the 1st half there was a moment where russell kicked for a 50:22 and potter fumbled it into touch after been caught out of position, lynagh makes a similar kick off 1st phase soon after and keenan is good enough to predict the kick, catch it at his bootlaces and put a kick in. That kick happened to go out on the full but it was a demonstration on the difference in positioning etc. This meant that almost every contested kick that was spilled went the way of the lions, thats no accident, that is a better chase, more urgency, more players in the area. Wallabies need to be better in who fields their kicks getting maxy and wright under most of them and Lynagh under less, and the chase needs to be the responsibility of not just one winger but a whole group of players who pressure not just the catch but the tackle, ruck and following phase.

      17 Go to comments
      J
      JW 3 hours ago
      Competing interests and rotated squads: What the 'player welfare summer' is really telling us

      Thanks for the further background to player welfare metrics Nick.


      Back on the last article I noted that WR is now dedicating a whole section in their six-point business plan to this topic. It also noted that studies indicated 85-90% of workload falls outside of playing. So in respect to your point on the classification of ‘involvements’, needing to include even subs with a low volume of minutes, it actually goes further to the wider group of players that train as if they’re going to be required to start on the weekend. That makes even the 30-35 game borderline pale into insignificance.


      No doubt it is one of the main reasons why France has a quota on the number of any one clubs amount of players in their International camps, where they rotate in other clubs players through the week (those not chosen in the 23 on Tues/Wed must be rotated out with players from another club for the remaining weeks prep). The number of ‘invisible’ games against a players season tally or predicted workload suggests the FFRs 25 game limit as more appropriate?


      So if we take it at face value that Galthie and the FFR have got it right, only a dozen players from the last 60 international caps should have gone on this tour. More players from the ‘Scotland 23’ than the more recent 23 were eligible.


      The only real pertinent question is what do players prefer more, health or money? There are lots of ethical decisions, like for instance whether France could make a market like Australia’s where their biggest rugby codes have yearly broadcast deals of 360 and 225 million euros. They do it by having a 7/8 month season, but ultimately if they don’t want it to change they can just play 11 months in the season instead.

      72 Go to comments
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