Dual-registered players issue still causing concern at RFU
Those who defend the current system argue that Pirates have as much right as any other club to get their hands on a starlet or three.
In practicality, though, where most dual registered players are at the beck and call of the Premiership sides first and foremost and attend Championship training sessions as and when they can, the reality is much different. It’s considerably easier to nip up the M1 from Oadby or the M5 from Kingsholm than it is to reach Cornwall, a minimum seven hour round trip from any top flight club.
As a side issue there may be confusion over which players – like England cap Sam Vesty – are loaned and which are dual registered. The situation can be clouded when 27-year-old New Zealand-born hookers like Joe Duffey are considered to be part of an England academy.
For the record Duffey is English qualified through his Cornish father but has played for both Leicester and Nottingham this season and there has been some disquiet surrounding his exact status.
Sufficient rumbling, in fact, for the RFU to look into the whole system with a view to limiting the number of DR players that can appear in any one team.
Which brings us back to the e-mail.
A high ranking RFU official told me Premier Rugby had taken matters into their own hands when Corin Palmer, the organisation’s Development and Academy Manager, confirmed a PRL board decision thus: “For the remainder of this Season, on a voluntary basis, all PRL Clubs will limit the dual-registered EAP Players who play for a Championship Club in the play-offs to a maximum of 5 with a maximum age of 25 years old.”
Now even though that ceiling is rarely reached, that set some pulses racing, I can tell you.
Most irritating to some was the implicit assumption by PRL they have the right to dictate the make up of Championship squads at such an important time of the year.
Especially since in days of yore guys like Trinder, Roberts or Mullan would have belonged to Nottingham, Moseley or Coventry in their own right, instead of having already been hoovered from such set-ups by the lure of an academy contract worth a princely £10,000 a year.
And there is also the suspicion that whenever the Premiership do anything about the troublesome little brother it’s to keep it in place.
Indeed one Championship director suggested to me the limit on dual registered players was merely an attempt to make sure their 13th man – Bristol – is not too inconvenienced in their attempts to secure promotion.
Like I said – dual registration is a topic where conspiracy theories abound and one where self service and not the development of the next generation appears to be the primary motivation.
