Peter Jackson’s column: Over-load on players so wrong says Larder

George Ford played 32 matches for club and country last season, more than any of his international contemporaries anywhere in Europe.
At a time when the game finds itself confronted yet again by the fractious issue of too many players being flogged through too many matches, a list of the busiest for 2014-15 finds England‘s fly half at the top, surprisingly so given that the French clubs play more games than their British and Irish counterparts.
Ford is followed by a quartet of French forwards, a short head from Alun-Wyn Jones, whose combined total of 29 appearances for Wales and the Ospreys make him the most active of Test forwards among the four home countries.
Nobody in Wales is more passionate about his region than Jones, not that he will have many opportunities to show it during the coming season.
Wales will hope to be playing 18 internationals starting from next month which effectively eliminates their home-based players from half of the 22-match Pro 12 campaign.
Phil Larder, one of the very first of a battalion of Rugby League coaches to switch codes and the only one to have won the World Cup, makes a telling point.
While other countries and other contact sports grasp the nettle, the English, Welsh and French keep over-loading their players.
“In American football they restrict players to 28 games a season,” he says.   “The Southern Hemisphere countries impose a similar restriction. Rugby League has done its best by reducing the number of teams in Super League.    The only countries where the players play far more matches are England, Wales and France.
“The repercussions are severe.   When, for example, was the last time Stuart Lancaster had a fully fit England squad to select from?  Professionalism has turned Rugby Union into a massive collision sport.
“I also feel some clubs do far too much full contact training.   I experienced that in my time at Leicester organising their defence. They just wanted to knock seven bells out of each other.
“I remember one incident in the week after a particularly heavy defeat.   I persuaded Dean Richards (then Tigers‘ director of rugby) not to do any full-contact stuff.
“After finishing a skills drill, Dean gave me the players and I told them we weren’t going full-on.  Darren Garforth, then an England prop, turned to the rest and said:  ‘This soft Rugby League coach doesn’t believe in the full-on stuff.   Well, I’m going full on’.
‘’The rest joined him because it was ingrained in them.   And they put 40 points on Saracens two days later.
‘’There ought to be research done by the RFU into the extra games involved in World Cup years and seasons when the Lions go on tour.
“I keep hearing rumours about the Aviva Premiership being extended to 14 clubs which would mean four more matches per season.   I think that’s a move in the wrong direction.”