Northampton Saints: Coach Mallinder to switch focus to overseas signings
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SAINTS boss Jim Mallinder says the club has to start looking at recruiting overseas players because of the high number of England players now in the Franklin’s Gardens squad.
Eight Northampton players were included in Stuart Lancaster’s Elite Player Squad for the Six Nations that starts on Saturday, with Ryan Lamb and Paul Doran-Jones in the Saxons team as well.
Saints will have Calum Clark back for this Saturday’s LV= Cup clash with Wasps, but to have so many frontline players missing for two months is hard to deal with.
Mallinder will have to cope without them while playing four vital Aviva Premiership games and there will also be the Autumn internationals to deal with next term.
Saints’ interest in Gloucester’s Luke Narraway cooled after he was called up to the England squad and Mallinder admits the club may have reached the maximum number of internationals it can cope with.
“We have got to be very careful in terms of who we recruit,” said Mallinder. “It is good to have English players and ones of international quality, because you need those type of players to win you big games and we want to get through to semi-finals and finals and win them.
“It is important you have them, but I think, as we have found out and as Leicester are saying as well, you can have too many. We have got to be careful.”
Saints chief executive Allan Robson has called for clubs to be allowed to spend above the salary cap to compensate for their England players, just as they were for the World Cup this season, but there has been no movement from Premiership Rugby and Mallinder is well into his recruitment process.
“It is very hard when you bring players in and develop them into international players,” said Mallinder. “You want to keep them, you don’t want to lose them.
“But we are very mindful now about bringing players in. We have never had a policy of bringing in international players in the four-and-a-half years we have been here, but we have to be careful in terms of those players who are just underneath international recognition in deciding to bring them in, because you can loose too many - eight players is a lot.”
So are Saints going to look overseas for players now?
“You have got to look at it,” said Mallinder. “Your club gets financed if you have a certain number of EQP (English Qualified Players) players in the squad, but you have got to look around and get the right balance.
“And we have got to have players who will be here throughout the season.”
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There are 3 comments to this article
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steve rodhouse
Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 03:47 PMTry again :~ understandably not understandable or understanable.
steve rodhouse
Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 03:43 PMtypo correction :~ understandably not understanable
steve rodhouse
Thursday, February 2, 2012 at 03:16 PMWhat a ridiculous situation the RFU have created here. The more players that are nurtured to become future England Internationals, the more the club that produces them is penalised during the Premiership season. The end result is that English Rugby loses quality in the long term as teams understandable look overseas and so there is less chance for Academy players to come through and gain the required experience etc. For Heaven's sake play the LV, and even the Amlin if necessary, during the International games and subsidise the clubs for the losses incurred at the turnstiles.
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