Confusion over contracts, scheduling and the return to training have all added up to create one big mess and the Premiership is struggling to deal with it
If you were to highlight the biggest problem in English club rugby at the moment you would have plenty to choose from. From the arbitrary deadline given to players to sign new contracts with their clubs to the jostling by unions over who has priority in the autumn, it is fair to say that 15 August – the Premiership’s provisional restart date – feels a long way away.
In every instance, however, there has been the common problem of communication – or lack of it. Initially the narrative over wage cuts was that the players were rejecting them, that they were not willing to help or that they did not understand the gravity of the situation the clubs were in. Perhaps that was the case at the start, but the reason was that it was not properly explained to them. And it is certainly not the case now.
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