Saints’ Dowson says English clubs hampered by ‘dysfunctional’ schedule | Rugby union

English club rugby is being undermined by a “dysfunctional” fixture schedule that is making it harder to compete with other top European sides, according to Northampton’s director of rugby, Phil Dowson. Saints are the only English team still involved in the Champions Cup this season but Dowson believes Premiership teams are being handicapped by their own domestic calendar.

Northampton were crowned Premiership champions last season and also made the Champions Cup semi-finals, but Dowson believes it will require a “monumental effort” for any Premiership club to challenge successfully on two fronts given the current structure and salary cap restrictions.

“At the moment it’s dysfunctional, it doesn’t work,” said Dowson, whose team are struggling to make this season’s domestic playoffs despite possessing a number of first-choice England international players. “The more you develop players the less you see of them. There is a worry about that.

“It’s no surprise that we’ve played our best with everyone available. When you get all your best players on the pitch you’re going to put some good stuff together. The problem we’re in is that Steve Borthwick wants the best players playing for him, I want our best players playing for us and Mark Mapletoft [head coach of England Under-20s] wants the best players for him.”

A deliberate effort has been made this season to reduce the number of Premiership games played during international windows but Dowson believes further tweaks are still required, particularly for the sake of clubs who supply lots of international squad members. “We talk about a deconflicted schedule [but] if they’re playing every game England players would have missed four games out of an 18-match league. That’s 20 points where they’re not available,” he said.

“If the Premiership Rugby Cup is your development tournament you [also] can’t lose your U20s during that period. The players are getting pulled in different directions, there’s too much rugby and not enough players. There’s a fixture element to it and a financial element.

“I’ve spoken to Michael Cheika about how he’s coped with it [at Leicester] and I’d love to talk to Mark McCall [at Saracens], too. At some points they had eight or nine players going to England. It is difficult. They had a big squad which they could back-fill when they were successful on both fronts.”

Squad management is further complicated by the 30-game maximum limit introduced for player welfare reasons. Northampton’s Tommy Freeman has already played 23 games this season, however, and is almost certain to exceed the limit if he is selected for the British & Irish Lions tour to Australia. “If that’s what the research says about game limits then that’s what we should do,” said Dowson. “But it shouldn’t always fall on the club to carry the can for that.

“If you say to Tommy ‘You can’t go on a Lions tour because we’ve got to a quarter-final or a semi-final’ he’s going to say: ‘This is mental.’ But it can’t always be us picking it up. We’ve got to make sure the risk, the burden, is carried by everybody.”

Northampton, who have confirmed the signing of the Italian prop Danilo Fischetti ahead of next season, are still considering whether to risk picking George Furbank on their bench for Saturday’s home quarter-final against Castres. The England full-back has not played since breaking his arm in December but is almost back to full fitness. “It’s not out of the question but it might be a big ask for him to drop straight in,” Dowson said.

Welsh rugby’s ongoing turmoil, meanwhile, has taken another twist with Cardiff on the brink of entering administration. The Welsh Rugby Union is understood to be planning to take the cash-strapped region under its control.