Premiership salary cap special report, part two: Your club's spending strategy revealed

The new Premiership rugby season starts on Friday when Bristol Bears take on Leicester tigers at Ashton Gate. Before the weekend’s opening matches, we have taken a close look at how teams have been preparing for the new season. 

The first part of our report into how teams are managing the salary cap was published yesterday, looking at Bath, Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs, Gloucester and Harlequins. The second part of the series is below: click on the following links to be taken direct to our analysis of your team’s off-season

Leicester Tigers, Newcastle Falcons, Northampton Saints, Sale Sharks and Saracens. 

Leicester Tigers

Excluded player: Handre Pollard

Rolling with the punches has been a theme of the past 10 months for Leicester, and meticulous planning has helped them thrive despite England’s extraordinary swoop for their entire coaching team.

Recruitment for the current campaign began a fortnight after Freddie Burns’ drop-goal at Twickenham, in July 2022. Kyle Hatherell, then of Worcester Warriors, was secured as a priority signing by Steve Borthwick and ex-London Irish wing Ollie Hassell-Collins was another to be picked up long before his club fell into financial turmoil. Hatherell was encouraged to go to La Rochelle upon the demise of Worcester, partly because there was little need to integrate him immediately.

Meanwhile, retention was in full swing and Tigers tied down a talented group including Ollie Chessum, Dan Kelly, Freddie Steward, James Whitcombe and Jack van Poortvliet. As both Saracens and Exeter Chiefs have found, keeping promising academy crops together is like spinning plates because simultaneous wage jumps have to be absorbed under the cap.

As an example, Steward went from an academy contract to one worth around £250,000. The full-back is an interesting case because he would be valued more highly at a club with a territory-first game-plan.

Speaking of strategy, Dan McKellar’s methods – and their suitability to the existing Leicester squad – were considered during the process to replace Borthwick. The Australian rolled up his sleeves as soon as he left the Wallabies, engaging in numerous early-morning and late-night Zoom calls with Richard Wilks.

Wilks himself has been promoted to general manager, with the club appointing James Wade as head of rugby partnerships. Wade will dovetail with Wilks on recruitment and oversee the playing programme of players below the first-team, such as those on loan away from Tigers.

Opportunism has been key to Leicester’s post-Covid turnaround, with Mike Brown and Chris Ashton two success stories as far as short-term signings. Charlie Atkinson was brought in upon Wasps’ collapse, too. Tigers will not want for international or homegrown credits and McKellar did have scope to bolster his roster. He has accumulated players familiar to him in Sam Carter, Joe Powell and Solomone Kata. All three are ex-Brumbies, and each of them add depth to positions in which Tigers have players in international contention.

The acquisitions of resourceful back-rower Matt Rogerson, the old London Irish skipper, and Josh Bassett bring know-how, while Kieran Wilkinson and Elliot Gourlay arrived from Sale Sharks. Gourlay, a Scotland age-grade international, is well worth monitoring.

Leicester lost favourites including Ashton, Calum Green and Harry Potter over the summer, yet are already in the thick of pivotal business. Work is believed to be well underway to extend the deals of George Martin and Jasper Wiese, with the bristling Springboks back-rower thought to have been offered a significant deal.

Although finer details must be finalised, it is thought that there is hope of Anthony Watson continuing his Tigers career as well.

Newcastle Falcons

Excluded player: None

The mid-season departures of George McGuigan and Trevor Davison during the 2022-23 campaign reinforced how Matt Thompson, Newcastle’s chairman of rugby, had been given the task of shaving money off the wage bill. In due course, Alex Tait and Will Welch retired and Falcons bid farewell to a huge batch of first-team regulars. Among the most eye-catching were Sean Robinson, Gary Graham, Micky Young, Greg Peterson, Carl Fearns and Logovi’i Mulipola.

Consolidating a squad around promising local lads is an obvious intention, with a trio of England internationals in Jamie Blamire, Callum Chick and Adam Radwan all having renewed terms. Chick and Radwan are thought to be at the top of the pay structure. The latter has signed up for three years, which is a coup for Newcastle given that raw speed is always in demand. As far as upcoming prospects, there are high hopes for back-rower Guy Pepper and full-back Ben Redshaw.

Falcons are clearly competing against sides with bigger budgets and have needed to be cute. When it comes to ‘tier one’ Test stars, Argentina players offer value for money and Eduardo Bello has joined a quartet of Pumas already at Newcastle in Pedro Rubiolo, Matías Moroni, Matías Orlando and Mateo Carreras. Carreras, who scored 14 tries last season including a stunner at Northampton, is out of contract this summer.

Sam Cross, the mobile flanker, fly-half Josh Thomas and defence coach Scott Baldwin, who retired from playing, make it a trio of signings from Ospreys as well.  The relatively inexpensive cost of living in the North East is known to be used as a recruiting tool and Alex Codling, the new head coach, moved quickly to secure John Hawkins from Jersey. 

Similarly, Rory Jennings headed up the A1 after something of a breakthrough campaign for London Irish. Although he is no spring chicken at 27, Jennings, an erstwhile England age-group international, had cycled through several senior clubs in the Premiership, the Championship and the Top 14. Last season, he found a niche as a tough, ball-playing inside centre and Newcastle snapped him up.

Northampton Saints

Likely excluded player: Courtney Lawes

Though they will have been disappointed with how their Premiership campaign ended, in a 38-15 loss to Saracens, Phil Dowson’s side dealt with a couple of curveballs to reach the play-offs. Dan Biggar left for Toulon in November and Courtney Lawes, another of their top-earners, was side-lined for most of the season.

Saints are another team that seem, from the outside at least, to be considered and composed. Paul Shields is well regarded as head of recruitment and their deals exude sense. The departures of Biggar, Matt Proctor, David Ribbans and Mike Haywood left glaring holes down the spine of their side. But convincing provisions have been made.

Fin Smith, who was a target anyway, had come on board when Worcester Warriors collapsed, before Biggar flew to France. Burger Odendaal, previously of Wasps, will be a midfield focal point. Temo Mayanavanua, the Fiji lock, was signed from Lyon on a deal thought to be worth around £200,000 per year. Curtis Langdon bounces back to the Premiership from Montpellier, where he found sanctuary after the Worcester debacle.

Northampton were already monitoring Chunya Munga and Tarek Haffar, the pair of London Irish academy graduates, when financial catastrophe allowed them to swoop. Tom Pearson was another Exile to relocate to the East Midlands. The marauding back-rower is thought to be earning around £250,000, yet Saints had room to manoeuvre following the unexpected exit of Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, who is believed to have been on more than that. Salakaia-Loto left with immediate effect in May, admitting to a “heavy heart” and citing his family’s struggle to settle away from Australia.

Retaining Juarno Augustus and Courtney Lawes would have been satisfying. The former declared it “incredibly easy” to extend and Lawes, fuelled partly by the desire to contribute after an injury-hit 2022-23, is understood to have accepted a pay-cut to stay at his boyhood club. Saints take pride in developing their own, such as Fraser Dingwall. Watch out for Henry Pollock, a tearaway flanker, scampering scrum-half Archie McParland and loping full-back George Hendy.

It is thought that there is a bracket of players on wages of around £250,000 at Saints and there are two sizeable priorities as far as retention. Alex Mitchell and Lewis Ludlam, two of the club’s three representatives in England’s current World Cup squad, are out of contract at the end of the season.

Sale Sharks

Possible excluded player: Nic Schonert

A player that moves between Premiership clubs cannot be excluded from the salary cap at his new team for two years, so Sale must still fit George Ford’s £550,000 wages under the cap. Alex Sanderson has made no secret of the fact that he has been working up to the limit of the cap and has therefore needed to move a few things around.

Jono Ross’ early retirement appears to have freed up funds to keep Manu Tuilagi, who was their excluded player for the 2022-23 season. Sam Bedlow is a good addition to the midfield stocks, which was needed given both Sam Hill and Ryan Mills were among a contingent to be released. Meanwhile, Will Cliff and Byron McGuigan are two more loyal servants to have retired.

Though they have also signed Ernst van Rhyn and Telusa Veainu, the latter a close friend of Tuilagi, Sale have evidently made room for a prolific stream of academy graduates. Gus Warr and Joe Carpenter, for instance, were among their best last season. Hooker was one area where reasonably quick thinking was required.  

Ewan Ashman was courted by the Scottish Rugby Union and unveiled as an Edinburgh signing in April, which gave Sale a handy, six-figure transfer fee. Akker van der Merwe was another to head home, joining the Bulls in South Africa. Sale like their hookers tenacious, which gave them a focus. Fortunately, through differing circumstances, two such players became available.

Luke Cowan-Dickie has been able to stay in England despite the high-profile breakdown of his lucrative move to Montpellier and, albeit only on a one-year contract, is thought to be earning a higher salary than he did at Exeter Chiefs. Agustín Creevy was eager to remain in the United Kingdom upon the demise of London Irish as well, with a view to moving into coaching. While Sale remain in the market for a hooker next season, they have formed a solid contingency and senior sources are confident of maintaining a settled squad for the next two or three years.

Ford’s future will be the subject of speculation over the coming months, with reports in France having linked him with Racing 92. Last time he moved clubs, from Leicester Tigers to Sale in the summer of 2020, it was part of a fly-half merry-go-round that affected a quarter of the Premiership.

Saracens 

Likely excluded players: Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje

With total justification, Saracens will attract scrutiny whenever they are linked with recognisable players. That said, the reigning champions have readjusted since the bad old days. “They’re pretty whiter than white,” one source suggested. “They just have to be”.

Last year’s recruitment and retention process effectively pivoted on Billy Vunipola exercising a ‘plus one’ option in his contract amid interest from France and Japan. Before that, Mark McCall had agreed terms with Tom Parton, Gareth Simpson and Tom Willis to strengthen the Saracens spine. They could not compete with the offer that Bristol Bears made to Max Malins, believed to be of around £360,000, and needed to let go a valued academy product.

Ben Earl, Elliot Daly and Jamie George all triggered their own year-long extensions and Billy Vunipola eventually followed suit. After that, late in the season, came confirmation that Jackson Wray and Duncan Taylor would be retiring. Sean Maitland stayed on but other leavers included Robin Hislop, Ruben de Haas, Eduardo Bello, Francois Hougaard and Ethan Lewis.

There has been no news of renewals for either Owen Farrell or Maro Itoje since 2020, which means that both could remain excluded from the cap. When one factors in various credits, that means the total spend on playing salaries from Saracens could conceivably be close to £8m.

Nick Kennedy has been head of recruitment now for five years and Saracens landed more good deals. Tom West, previously of Wasps, joined them from Leicester Tigers before they picked up three former London Irish front-liners. Juan Martín González and Lucio Cinti, both Argentina starters, are not thought to have cost much more than £150,000 per season in combined salary on their initial contracts. Ollie Hoskins, an Australia international, is understood to have been brought on board thanks to injury dispensation from Alec Clarey’s neck injury.

On paper, Saracens look stronger than last season and will fancy a crack at reaching the Champions Cup final, which will be staged at Tottenham Hotspur. That could represent a fitting last dance, because Daly, Farrell, George, Itoje and Billy and Mako Vunipola are thought to be among those out of contract this summer. 

Even if Saracens streamline their roster in reaction to a 10-team Premiership and fewer clashes with international fixtures, one suspects something will have to give somewhere. Nobody would begrudge any of those six players a foreign pay-day, but Earl has signed up for more. Saracens announced this week that the England flanker has finalised a new “long-term contract”.

Lastly, a word on rough diamonds. Theo McFarland has been polished into a sensational player at Saracens and Sam Asotasi joined the club’s academy in August. Stockier than McFarland at 6ft 2in, the back-rower has been loaned to Ampthill for Championship game-time.