Player management company Esportif Intelligence has releases figures indicating the pay gap as well as the best played positions

The new data shows what positions each club find to be most valuable as well as the difference in salaries between Pro 14 players and their English counterparts.

It’s so often the case that Irish, English, Welsh and Scottish club sides lose some of their best talent due to simply not being able to afford some of the other wages being offered by wealthier clubs, for example George North, who at the time with the Scarlets was one of the hottest prospects in World Rugby, decided to leave his native league and join Premiership giants Northampton saints for a chunkier pay day. Nowadays it seems so often the case for Welsh and Scottish players especially, to leave their home clubs in search for a better pay day e.g Dan Biggar in recent times following George Norths footsteps left Ospreys for the Saints in a reported £650,000 a year salary.

Esportif Intelligence is a player management agency who represent some of the worlds best like Rory Best, Alun Wyn Jones and James Haskell and while they cannot release personal salaries completely, they did come up with an average income in both the Pro 14 and The Aviva Premiership with the latter earning 15% more at 200,000 per player compared to the Pro 14’s 170,000 a man.

Whilst obviously the home players are well looked after, it’s still quite a considerable gap which helps explain why so many decide to make the move.

Above is a graphic produced by the agency to represent which positions in both leagues are best paid with out-half being the most sought after of the 15.

Loosehead prop is the worst paid las years Pro 12 while blindside flanker earned the least in the Premiership. Locks are high up on both lists with inside cente being furthers apart at second in the Aviva but second last in the Pro 12.

While the English league, per man, pays its players better, when Esportif combined the best possible Pro 12 team they felt could be fielded, they were actually earning more than an Aviva best XV.

Speaking on the findings, Hannah Bowe, head of Esportif’s advisory services said “The PRO12 try to pay quality players at its top end more. It’s the second and third choice players at those teams who on a whole are not paid as much compared to those in the Aviva,” 

“To me, it is representative of the strategy traditionally employed by the PRO12 teams and unions to be competitive, which has facilitated their national teams’ competitiveness, by looking after their most influential players where possible, whilst being more constrained on total budget.

“That is now being somewhat eroded by the external revenue streams in the Premiership, which has enabled clubs to attract and keep marquee players who may have headed for France.

“If you looked at the best starting XV of the Aviva and PRO12 last season, the combined salary would be over £5m per team.

“Traditionally, the most expensive team would have been from the PRO12 but the signs are that is changing.

“The difference between the top and bottom spending teams in the Aviva will tighten this year but I don’t really see that happening in the PRO14.

“There are four or five teams spending comparatively with the Aviva but a wider gap to sides like the Dragons and Connacht. Organisers of the PRO14 will hope the new broadcasting deal with South Africa will help narrow the gap.”

Bowe also explained that in some cases, clubs would over pay for certain positions and players they were short on if there wasn’t too many available at the time, saying “The average salary of a starting No.10 went up by 15% in the last year in the Aviva and by 5% in the PRO12 … so there wasn’t as much movement in that position in the PRO12… There are only two foreign outside-halves in the PRO14 and six in the Aviva. Things like that can have a difference.”

On top of club fee’s other things were taken into consideration as well, such as bonuses England and Wales Internationals receive for test appearances and big fees payed by the respective RFU’s to home players.

Figures revealed by Esportif claim that English players get between  £17000 and £22000 for a test appearance, which is understandably the highest in World Rugby.

While figures for Irish players test match fee’s weren’t released, if you were to play a test for Wales you would be pocketing £5300 plus £1500 on top of that for player image rights.