Premiership clubs are promoting a record number of academy graduates to first-team squads as part of a drive to cut wage levels and end the persistent losses of the professional era.
Exeter, the 2016-17 champions, recruited only one player from outside for the coming season, the Wales wing Alex Cuthbert, while signing 14 of their academy players on first‑team contracts. The team who succeeded them at Twickenham in May, Saracens, have 30 academy products in their senior squad, the highest in the Premiership.
In the past three years the number of academy players coming through at clubs has trebled. As well as allowing clubs to replace some middle-earning players who are in effect injury cover, all the young recruits are England qualified.
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“Because most of the extra revenue the clubs have earned in recent years has gone on wage increases, something has to give,” the Gloucester chief executive, Stephen Vaughan, said. “As well as seeing clubs operate with smaller squads, it will force us to take an earlier interest in our academy players.
“We have brought in a number of high-quality operators this season – such as Danny Cipriani, Matt Banahan and Franco Mostert – but they do not come cheap and you cannot have 40 internationals in your squad. We have a gold star academy and what I think you will see more of is third-choice players who are on £60,000-£70,000 a year will become academy products, young English players coming through to prove their worth. We have invested more in our academy than ever and wage inflation makes that essential to fill your squad.”
Under the league’s salary cap regulations clubs receive a maximum of £600,000 if they reach the Premiership’s home-grown player quota. However, bringing through young players can be inflationary in itself if a player quickly rises from an academy contract, which is around £20,000 a year, to Test status, as the Saracens second-row Maro Itoje did a couple of years ago.
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“It doesn’t make sense to not encourage clubs to produce English players,” the Saracens owner, Nigel Wray, said last season. “The salary cap itself doesn’t need changing but we need a dispensation to ensure we are not penalised. I think it is essential that it happens.”
Sale have made some notable signings in the two years Simon Orange has been in control after buying the club from Brian Kennedy. Yet he is investing heavily in the academy and looking to exploit the club’s position as the Premiership’s sole representative in the north-west.
“We have a great catchment area here and we have always had a good academy,” Orange said. “In the past bigger clubs have come in and helped themselves but that is not happening any more. The Curry boys [Ben and Tom] are a perfect example of how things have changed here, superstars no one is having.”
Stephen Lansdown has pumped tens of millions of pounds into Bristol since taking over in 2012 and saving the club from bankruptcy and he sees the club’s academy as part of the drive to profitability.
“I am 100% behind what is happening at academy level throughout the Premiership,” he said.
“We are at the centre of the community and want to inspire it through rugby success. We have an obligation to give young people the opportunity to play rugby and get to the highest level they can.
“From an economic point of view it makes sense to develop that pathway into the first-team squad, loaning them out to get a grounding in the game. It keeps costs under control and, when you bring in big names from abroad, you are looking for players who will help them develop. In sport it is very difficult to negotiate contracts to the profitability of the business and that makes academies vital.”