Up and Under: Luke Myring's Coventry RFC column.


By Luke Myring.
January 25 2012

WELL we finally steered the ship back in the right direction on Saturday by beating what has to be said was a poor Barking Side by 26 points to 14.

From the first minute, the game was never in doubt as our outstanding scrum took Barking apart early on and continued to do so throughout the whole game. Because of our recent form I think we played the game very cautiously, which was understandable but in the end maybe cost us the bonus point. However the most important thing, NO, the only important thing was the win and now we can put the last few weeks behind us and start moving forward and building on the performance from the weekend.

As we managed to get back on course the English sides in Europe showed us that maybe for English rugby the ship has sailed! Only Gloucester performed to a good level at the weekend and although our ‘South African franchise’, Saracens, managed to beat Italy’s equivalent, Treviso, to be the only ‘English’ side through, they looked void of ideas like the rest of our teams.

We have many, many outstanding players in England and I really hope that this year is just a blip for our sides. I think the problem stems from our salary cap which means our clubs are finding it increasingly hard to compete with the free-spending French clubs and also the regional franchises which compete in the Celtic League. I think most of the English clubs have a strong first team but when there have been injuries they just haven’t seemed to have the strength in depth which is required to battle for trophies both domestically and against the big powers in Europe.


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Up and Under: Luke Myring's Coventry RFC column.
Discussion started by Unofficial Coventry Rugby (IP Logged), 25/01/2012 16:03
Unofficial Coventry Rugby
Unofficial Coventry Rugby
25/01/2012 16:03
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Roger Fox
25/01/2012 16:58
I wonder what would happen if the salary cap was removed? Would the Premiership Clubs be tempted to overspend in order to compete, with perhaps some clubs going under? It might result in a few teams competing better in Europe, but with some clubs going under? We have seen this week with Cambridge, the outcome of spending more than is coming in.

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rustyroof
25/01/2012 19:09
the french clubs with all the dosh weren't that great. Toulouse were beaten by Quins and Glos, Leicester beat Clermont, Sarries beat Biarritz.It's only the Irish who are the standing out at the moment.
I'm all in favour of the salary cap plus incentives to field as many engish players as possible. It's upto the clubs to take advantage of the many talented youngsters comming out of the acadamies each year and develope them instead of taking the short-term option of an experienced SH import. the talent is there as shown by the successes of the England age group teams in recent years. this approach may take a few years to fully bear fruit, but it's definitely the way to go.

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