You can find plenty about academies on the internet, once you fight your way past the tweets of Piers Morgan and the pictures of Katie Price, but only a proper QAnon type would give serious consideration to the idea that Exeter, the reigning double champions, are at the wrong end of the league table when it comes to fast-tracking their locally-developed talent.
Yet if you run a lazy eye over the Premiership “ins and outs” pages on the aforementioned Wikipedia, it is possible to reach a very odd conclusion: namely, that while Gloucester have promoted more than 20 academy graduates to their senior squad over the over the last six seasons, their fellow West Countrymen have been just a little more conservative, to the point of promoting none at all.
Which is, of course, a load of oval balls. The presence of Stu Townsend in Exeter’s current Champions Cup squad, together with a couple of Maunders in Jack and Sam, proves they have elevated three players in the scrum-half position alone.
Unlike a majority of top-flight sides, the Chiefs do not make a formal “promoted from the academy” declaration in announcing their squad at the start of each campaign.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 31, 2021-Ausgabe von The Rugby Paper.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 31, 2021-Ausgabe von The Rugby Paper.
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