The Gallagher Premiership is now filled with players who earn astronomical salaries. Year upon year, wages for top players seem to skyrocket.
By how much? We’ve identified the highest-paid Premiership player for every season since the game went professional to find out.
To do so, we've undertook painstaking research to delve into newspaper archives to reveal the reported player wages.
Some seasons had multiple highest earners with players signing contracts at different times throughout the campaign but they’ve used the highest earner at the end of each season.
Got it? Good.
Let’s take a look at the results:
1997-1998: Va'aiga Tuigamala (Newcastle Falcons) - £80,000 per season
1999-2000: Francois Pienaar (Saracens) - £85,000 per season
2000-2001: Jason Robinson (Sale Sharks) - £180,000 per season
2001-2002: Martin Johnson (Leicester Tigers) - £200,000 per season
2002-2004: Jonny WIlkinson (England) - £250,000 per season
2005-2007: Lawrence Dallaglio (Wasps) - £300,000 per season
