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Premiership Rugby still to reach agreement over player release for World Cup

Back three star Liam Williams is in a contract year at Saracens. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Premier Rugby and World Rugby have yet to reach an agreement that will ensure players from Wales, Scotland and a number of other countries won’t be denied permission to take a full part in World Cup training preparations.  

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Wales names their training squad as early as next Tuesday for the finals in Japan, but Warren Garland is still uncertain he will have access to the likes of Liam Williams, Dan Biggar and Taulupe Faletau are for their altitude training camp in July, and their first warm-up match against England on August 11.

The next World Rugby council meeting is due to be held on May 22 and it is hoped by then that an ongoing row with Premiership Rugby (PRL) will finally be resolved. 

It was last December when the Guardian newspaper reported that PRL issued World Rugby with a legal action threat regarding insurance. As a consequence, they insisted they would strictly enforce the release of non-English players. 

Such a restriction would mean that a raft of Welsh and Scottish players – along with others from Tonga, Samoa and Fiji who are contracted to Premiership clubs – would not be able to join their countries’ World Cup preparations until mid?August, only 35 days before the tournament begins in Japan. 

“We are continuing to have discussions with World Rugby and while we have made progress there are still some outstanding issues,” a PRL spokesperson told the Guardian.

“Positive discussions are ongoing, however there are still some details that need confirming. We cannot confirm these finer details at this stage but we look forward to further positive discussions with World Rugby.”

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World Rugby’s regulation 23 states that clubs are compensated by unions for injuries picked up on international duty for players who earn £225,000 or less a year. Anything more than that is paid by the clubs.

World Rugby. agreed to increase the threshold to £350,000 but PRL wanted no limit and requested it be removed on the basis there are 60 non-English internationals in the Premiership earning £225,000 or above and 25 on £350,000 or above.

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M
MA 3 hours ago
How the four-team format will help the Wallabies defeat the Lions

In regards to Mack Hansen, Tuipoloto and others who talent wasnt 'seen'..

If we look at acting, soccer and cricket as examples, Hugh Jackman, the Heminsworths in acting; Keith Urban in Nashville, Mike Hussey and various cricketers who played in UK and made the Australian team; and many soccer players playing overseas.


My opinion is that perhaps the ' 'potential' or latent talent is there, but it's just below the surface.


ANd that decision, as made by Tane Edmed, Noah, Will Skelton to go overseas is the catalyst to activate the latent and bring it to the surface.


Based on my personal experience of leaving Oz and spending 14 months o/s, I was fully away from home and all usual support systems and past memories that reminded me of the past.


Ooverseas, they weren't there. I had t o survive, I could invent myself as who I wanted, and there was no one to blame but me.


It bought me alive, focused my efforts towards what I wanted and people largely accepted me for who I was and how I turned up.


So my suggestion is to make overseas scholarships for younger players and older too so they can benefit from the value offered by overseas coaching acumen, established systems, higher intensity competition which like the pressure that turns coal into diamonds, can produce more Skeltons, Arnold's, Kellaways and the like.


After the Lion's tour say, create 20 x $10,000 scholarships for players to travel and play overseas.


Set up a HECS style arrangement if necessary to recycle these funds ongoingly.


Ooverseas travel, like parenthood or difficult life situations brings out people's physical and emotional strengths in my own experiences, let's use it in rugby.

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