Here are the latest rugby headlines on Monday, January 2.
Biggar: 'More will follow me to France'
Dan Biggar says more players from Wales and England will follow him to France.
The Toulon man told the Mail: "This last couple of months have taught me that anything can happen; the way the Premiership and the Welsh regions are. It’s been a whirlwind. Things changed quickly and we’re fully invested to make it a success on and off the pitch.
"Let’s call it as it is. The salary cap in France is much higher. They’ve got big crowds here every week. They had 33,000 on a Sunday night in Bordeaux. No-one turns up to those games in the UK, do they? I believe you’ll see more and more players come over.
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"Northampton weren’t able to extend my contract and I’m totally fine with that. Exeter developed a lot of academy guys into world-class players and the reality is that you can’t fit everybody into the cap. My personal opinion is that if the salary cap is £5million in England and a club can afford to spend £7m, then you’re hamstringing them. The salary cap, for me, is too low and the proof is in the pudding because we’re seeing players leaving."
A number of Wales stars are being linked with big money moves to France, including fly-half Gareth Anscombe and hooker Ryan Elias. Gifted young Cardiff centre Max Llewellyn is leaving for Gloucester, while wales prop Dillon Lewis is expected to make a similar journey. Other Welsh players are also pondering their future amid the ongoing uncertainty about funding at the four regions.
'Nothing between Welsh regions'
Cardiff coach Dai Young believes there is very little between the four Welsh regions this season.
Young saw his team follow up a narrow away victory over the Dragons with a slender 22-19 home defeat to the Ospreys on New Year's Day.
He said: "I said before the Dragons game, I don’t think there’s much between any of the Welsh teams. In the two games that we’ve seen, it has gone right down to the wire on both occasions, which proves there’s not much between us.
"But in the second half the penalties cost us again. We gave 13 penalties away. A lot of penalties were around the breakdown and around the halfway line, which gave the Ospreys plenty of opportunities inside our 22. If you get them four or five driving line-outs, five metres out, then they’re going to come away with seven points at some stage. In the second half, we really struggled to get out of our own half through indiscipline and obviously gave them all the field position and all the momentum. There were set piece penalties in there as well, which we try to avoid, but we know they’re a quality outfit in that area.
“On another day you might get that going your way so there wasn’t much in the game. But what I was pleased about was that I never felt that game was ever going to get too far away from us. You look at last season, we never really got any losing bonus points or try bonus points. If we lost, we lost big. But I felt that game was never going to get too far away from us and we were always in the game. It’s something we’ve talked about - if we can stay in the game with 10 minutes to go, then games can go anywhere."
Moore questions Marler leniency
Rugby pundit Brian Moore believes Joe Marler should not have had his six-week ban for insulting an opponent's mother largely suspended.
The Harlequins and England prop will serve just two weeks of a six-week punishment unless he transgresses again. Details have since emerged of exactly what happened to spark an altercation in the festive Harlequins v Bristol match. You can read what Marler said and why Bristol's Jake Heenan "lost his head" here.
Moore believes Marler's previous bad behaviour, including abusing Wales prop Samson Lee in 2016 and grabbing Alun Wyn Jones' testicles in 2020, means he deserved less leniency.
He wrote in the Telegraph: "Marler’s record for on-field incidents of the disreputable and unbecoming was already not good, and that is distinguishing it from his less-than-ideal general disciplinary record. A two week ban for referring to Welsh player Samson Lee as ‘gypsy boy', was followed by a ten week ban for grabbing the genitals of Wales skipper Alun Wyn Jones in 2020. At some point with Marler the RFU have to make it plain that they do not want him to keep apologising for this type of incident, they want to him to stop committing them. If core values really do matter, there was no reason to suspend any part of Marler’s sentence. If you claim that worse is said to you on a Sunday morning, and you don’t complain, perhaps it is you that is out of line here."
Leinster start new year with convincing win against Connacht
United Rugby Championship leaders Leinster began the new year in familiar fashion with a 41-12 bonus-point win over Connacht at the RDS.
Tries from David Hawkshaw and Tom Farrell had Connacht just 19-12 behind at half-time, with Liam Turner, Brian Deeny and Jordan Larmour crossing for Leinster. Larmour, Rob Russell, Ryan Baird and Josh van der Flier made it a seven-try victory for Leo Cullen's men, whose only real worry was losing captain Jonathan Sexton to a facial injury.
Connacht were missing three of their Ireland internationals, with illness ruling out Finlay Bealham and Mack Hansen while Bundee Aki was rested due to Ireland player management.
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