Premiership Rugby's 'A' League games postponed due to rising injuries

As the injury list takes a new rise, a total of five Premiership Rugby’s ‘A’ League games were postponed in the last week.

Sunday's fixtures that included Leicester, Newcastle, Harlequins, Saracens, Sale and Worcester is the latest of the games to be postponed. Earlier, Bath's clash against Harlequins and encounter between Northampton and Wasps also had to deal with the same fate.

According to a report from The Telegraph, a total of 82 players from the first team have suffered injuries in the first four rounds of the Aviva Premiership.

The revamped A League now sees 13 teams split into two conferences with North having six sides and South comprising of seven teams with the top two from each group progressing to the semi-finals.

The tournament is used as a medium for players from first-team to gain valuable match experience and will also help them phase their comeback from injuries.

England flanker Tom Wood and fly-half Piers Francis were the latest to return from injuries as they were set to play for Northamtpon Wanderers but their fixture against Wasps A was called off after the ambulance failed to arrive on time at the venue.

Leicester's head of operations Ged Glynn said the player welfare will be the topmost priority for the club.

"Player welfare is the absolute priority for Leicester Tigers.

"After picking up some knocks in Saturday’s game we are unable to field a team for the ‘A’ League and have postponed the fixture."

A spokesman from Premiership Rugby stated that the tournament will help England unearth young talents and is confident of tackling the issue of postponement of games due to injuries.

“The Premiership Rugby clubs have decided to expand the A League this season which will give the latest crop of talented young players the opportunity to develop in their club environment,” said a Premiership Rugby spokesman.

“With England having won three of the last five Junior World Cup Finals it is clear we have a growing group of young players who will benefit from an expanded A League, something we have witnessed already.

“This is the first season of this expansion and four matches [before the news regarding Northampton-Wasps] out of 22 have been postponed. We expected this in the early part of the season and we are in the process of re-arranging those games for later in the campaign.

“We must give our clubs the flexibility to schedule matches on alternative dates if circumstances require that.”