Players heading for another post-Lions burnout say RPA

Damian Hopley believes England’s top stars are facing inevitable burnout unless steps are taken to limit the number of appearances they make.
The Rugby Paper can reveal that two England players – Owen Farrell (34 matches) and Mako Vunipola (36) – had exceeded the RFU‘s 32-game seasonal limit prior to yesterday’s third Test against Australia, while full-back Mike Brown had equalled it.
Brown, whose season began against France on August 22, had recorded the most game-time of any England player prior to the Sydney clash, racking up 2,428 minutes in all competitions at an average of 75.9 minutes per match over a 45-week campaign.
Harlequins teammate Chris Robshaw followed closely behind on 2,252 minutes at 75.1 minutes per game, while Farrell, Billy Vunipola, George Kruis and Maro Itoje have all notched over 2,000 minutes during ultra-intense seasons.
In the aftermath of the 2013 Lions tour of Australia, England scrum-half Ben Youngs and prop Mako Vunipola complained of the after-effects of their gruelling campaigns, while another prop, Alex Corbisiero, has since semi-retired.
With those England players mentioned emerging as outstanding candidates for next summer’s Lions tour of New Zealand, Rugby Players’ Association (RPA) chief executive Hopley has expressed his own concern that history is set to be repeated.
He told The Rugby Paper: “Do I think players will be burnt out again in 2017? The toughest position for any club is the season after a Lions tour and, as ever, we’re asking too much of the players.
“In the absence of an agreed global season, the issue will inevitably perpetuate and there’s no respite for the players with a four-game autumn series coming up, another tough Six Nations and the intensity of the Premiership and Europe.
“We do have faith in the strength and conditioning staff but the structure of our season is the most pressing thing. We’re still waiting to see where that’s going, if anywhere, but the silence is deafening and we’ve heard nothing from World Rugby.
“It’s testament to the players that despite the current structure they’re playing out of their skins, but they’re having to front up massively going into a Lions season and the issues around the volume of rugby and training won’t go away.”
Hopley believes a new five-week summer rest period agreed between the RPA and clubs will go some way towards helping, adding: “There’s been universal support for a five-week continuous break across the game and that’s encouraging.
“This has been a unique season with a World Cup and no LV= Cup, so we always knew it was going to be tough, but we’ve had assurances from World Rugby that we’ll be involved in talks over a global season and we look forward to that.”
NEALE HARVEY