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Reactions are mixed to Leicester's latest coaching reshuffle

Leicester Tigers look dejected after their recent Gallagher Premiership defeat at Northampton (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

The long awaited announcement of Steve Borthwick’s arrival of Leicester Tigers – a story first broken by RugbyPass last October – was finally made on Tuesday. 

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The former England captain is set to finish his time working under Eddie Jones, currently as a skills coach, before heading to Welford Road. 

The Rugby Football Union announced earlier this week that he will move on at the end of the season, which means he will be ready for next campaign with Leicester. 

Whether working for Jones with Japan or England, Borthwick has had a lot of success, largely as a forwards coach, helping build one of the most formidable packs in the world with England. 

Forward supremacy has historically been the Tigers’ bread and butter, but they have perhaps lost their way in recent years. Borthwick, though, is being tipped by Tigers supporters to bring back that edge. 

https://twitter.com/DaveNorris07/status/1219675564094693379

The last couple of years have been rough for one of English rugby’s powerhouses, as Leicester narrowly avoided relegation last season after finishing eleventh in the Gallagher Premiership. 

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They would also theoretically be bottom of the table at the moment if it were not for Saracens’ automatic relegation. 

The fact that relegation is no longer a possibility this season gives them the freedom to wait for Borthwick and it is believed that his pedigree will finally mark the beginning of a turnaround.

https://twitter.com/BlindsideJim/status/1219619413076381696?s=20

Meanwhile, the decision to move current head coach Geordan Murphy to the role of director of rugby has not gone down too well. 

While the former Ireland international is a club legend, his coaching stint since taking over from Matt O’Connor in 2018 has not been particularly successful. 

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https://twitter.com/brakey7/status/1219556835927216129?s=20

While some see this as a promotion for Murphy – and one that may not necessarily be warranted – his role will be different from Borthwick’s and he will remain a figure within the club who is aware of its identity going forward. 

Nonetheless, it is the former lock that is given the responsibility of resurrecting the Tigers to their former glory, and he looks suited to do just that. 

WATCH: Andy Goode and Brendan Venter didn’t hold back on this week’s The Rugby Pod as they discussed Saracens and the salary cap scandal

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J
JW 13 minutes 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.

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