Jeff Probyn: Salary cap is essential to keep our clubs solvent

Last week’s European results drew some interesting opinions from casting doubts on the French international side, to a call for another salary cap increase in the Premiership.    Lawrence Dallaglio’s assertion that French rugby is in crisis because their clubs are successful while the national team are not, does seem a little strange given that more English teams qualified for the quarter finals of the Champions Cup than French (four English, three French, one Irish).
Unfortunately, all the English clubs played away from home and suffered the consequential losses except for Saracens who managed a narrow win over Racing Metro.
Lawrence seems to think that because the players are excelling at club level but not at international there is a problem which is compounded by the number of foreign imports to France.
I agree with his view that there must be a balance between the number of foreign players and those qualified to play for the home country in any league whether that is the Top 14 or Premiership – but I disagree it is only the French who have got it wrong.
Wales, Ireland and Scotland do not have the problem, simply because their teams are regional and are controlled by their home unions, whereas England and France have clubs that are masters of their own recruitment policy and can chose players from wherever they want with little or no regard for the consequences to the national team.
In highlighting a number of players who seem to play well for their club but not for their country, Lawrence has inadvertently agreed with my observation that a player can look brilliant at club level but be unable to make the step up to international level with Steffon Armitage a perfect example.
With too many foreign international players, it becomes increasingly difficult to judge the ability of those qualified players playing with them, unless you can take them out of the ‘safe’ club environment.
Only England and France have club- based selection policies for international teams with no level of rugby between club and country and, as a result, they are the only countries that suffer any potential conflict of interest.
Clubs, quite naturally, want to win whatever league they play in and will try and attract the best players from wherever they can, currently in the professional game that is from the Southern Hemisphere.
The only way to combat this is for Unions to impose strict wage caps, and as the RFU do, pay clubs to have a certain number of English qualified players in every match day squad – but that doesn’t guarantee those players are of international standard. Even so, with the two biggest pools of players in the world, England and France should, and do, usually manage to get by unless they have the wrong team management in place.
If you took a straw poll of French rugby fans most would say that Philippe Saint-Andre is the wrong man and that he is not using the players he has in the right way and that way is how they are used by their clubs in the Top14.
Players like Wesley Fofana,  Maxime Machenaud and Mathieu Bastareaud are being asked to play a completely different role in international games to the one they play week in and week out for their club. Is it any wonder that they sometimes look lost on the international stage? Rumour has it that former Wasps hooker Raphaël Ibañez will take over from Saint-Andre after the World Cup and for fans of French rugby that day can’t come soon enough.
Wasps director of rugby Dai Young‘s suggestion of a tweak in the wage cap after Wasps lost to Toulon was, I think, out of frustration because of the size of squad that the French teams can have as a result of a much higher wage cap than the current levels in the Premiership.
At almost three times the amount of the Premiership, it enables the Top 14 to vacuum up so many current and ex-internationals that many of the Top14 clubs can field at least two teams full of international players.
That strength in depth gives the French sides a similar advantage in the Champions Cup that the Irish, Welsh and Scots of the Pro 12 had in the old Heineken Cup, enabling the French to ‘rest’ players in preparation for the big European games.
The Premiership have always contended that one of the main reasons they sought to change the old Heineken Cup was because of the unfair nature of the contest, having accused the Pro 12 of effectively cheating by resting players. One has to wonder if we are about to undergo another year of disruption with threat and counter threat as the Premiership seek a ‘level playing field’ with the French. I must admit I am puzzled by Dai Young’s comment, “All the clubs have been sustainable for a long period, the threat of teams financially going to the wall isn’t really there.”
It was only a couple of years ago that Wasps were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and needed to be rescued by Derek Richardson, who recently moved them to Coventry to stave off virtual financial ruin.
Then we have Saracens who have posted a £5.2m loss for 2013-14 and have liabilities of £40.5m that caused their auditors to say, “The existence of material uncertainty may cast doubts about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern” and that effectively leaves the club at the whim of its two main benefactors.
The majority of Premiership clubs are reliant on the generosity of a rich backer with no guarantees – if that is long term sustainability I’ll eat my hat!