What's the answer to England's woes?

First topic message reminder :

Right. We've all had a moan or sat back in abject despair at the shenanigans at the RWC and RFU but what is the answer?

For me its simple. The players obviously did not put their all in to the on-field activities at the RWC and for some years haven't really performed well whoever they were. Neither did they take any notice of the coaches. Nothing new here as we understand the players took things in to their own hands in RWC07. So what's the answer?

Quite simply the players are not contracted to England and therefore to be called up is only good for a little extra pin money. The players must be working for their real bosses. The one's who pay their wages and can hire and fire them. Only then will they take it seriously enough and sit up and take note. Until England understand this then nothing will improve believe me. It won't matter one jot who the coaching team is. The 'business' model is seriously flawed.

stlowe - I know what you are saying. OFC the fans have a important part to play and so does Club Rugby.

But the current club system has its flaws as well. For example you mention supporters but for the Numbers side like Newcastle and some of the bottom sides in the league pull it does not paint the picture of a vibrant club game.

Clubs play an important role in a players development to International Rugby. No question. But you do have to consider the standard of the games they are playing in. I dont want to be disrespectful here but some sides have zero abiltiy to win a trophy. Without genuine competition players will struggle to develop or take to much time in doing so.

The issue I have with the setup in England is that if we where seeing the likes of McCaw and Carter keeping English talent then fair enough but these days the club mentalitity is all about short term success or surviving. And they do this by buying established Pro's they can afford. This is a major flaw with relegation. At least if they removed relegation it would allow teams to build on the product and be a bit more creative.

I do question the real intensity that even established foreign stars bring with them. At the end of the day I'd rather have a kid trying his best to improve and play for the club he was from than some overpaid, prima dona world player of the year who was there for the largest pay packet to set him up in later life. After all tomorrows Superstars need to be given oppertunities early to really enhance their chances.

Welshmushroom. Those 14 players were simply the ones capped in about the last four years. That shows that a large number of players have been capped between 20-22 years old. These are the guys coming through the newish acadamies. How many have been capped later than that?

Easter - played in the devision below
Foden - wanted to play scrum half, delayed his introduction
Wood - playing at Worcester probably didn't help his chances. Also mostly playing 6 due to Sanderson.

Anyone else?

On top of these Wilkinson, Moody, etc were all capped young. And then we have players like Geraghty, Cipriani, Rees, Crane, Tait etc who we all capped young but either got injured or out of form. There is no evidence anywhere that England don't cap players until they're 25. There is however a lot of young players in the Priemership who aren't getting capped. But this is at least partially because there are too many of them to cap.

The premiership squads are generally around 30+acadamy. There currently around 117 English players starting every week. With another 120 either on the bench or not selected (+acadamy and bigger squads). That would be enough for 8 squads of 30 (and the extras adding the extras needed). So 30 English players + 5 foreigners + acadamy? I think that's plenty.

But I don't want to see it because I don't think it's a probably now.

10 is a problem at the moment. We've only got Flood (and Ford for some reason behind Staunton) at Tigers. Hodgson and Farrell at Saracens. Myler and Lamb at Saints. Burns and Taylor at Gloucester. Clegg at Quins behind Evans. Carlisle and Goode at Worcester. And then the odd person else where as backup.

I'd say the issue with average foreign players is that the younger players from the weaker clubs would rather be in the squad for the stronger teams and push for starting place rather than start at the weaker sides. As soon as they make a name they move on. Because of this the weaker sides either keep picking young players, develop thema nd then lose them. Or bring in players who are basically just in it for the money. So in the short term this is what they do. It's not the best but it keeps them in the premiership (or not in some cases). However, surely you're suggesting getting rid of these clubs completely? They contribute more to player development than nothing at all. Currently only one side is failing to complete in the premiership and that's Newcastle (largely due to the repeated loss of all their talented players and the replacement with average players who don't really care beyond their job).

atuakiwikiwi wrote:

cabbagesandbrussels wrote:

gowales wrote: Oh and another thing England has never played attacking rugby, they had players that could in 2003 but even they didn't, its simply not England's style.

That is total cr@p. In the run-up to the 2003 RWC, (when we won the Grand Slam) we were scoring tries all over the place.

Not against quality opposition. SCW made sure England Played plenty of minnows to collect "records" of circumstance.

November 2002;
3 tries v NZ
7 tries v SA
2 tries v Aus

Also look at the 6N scores from that period when England racked up many tries against Wales/Ireland/France. I'm afraid its a falacy that England under SCW didnt score tries against quality opposition. Its weird that people say that when its so easy to check the results!

good point ovalball..

you'd think he'd be happy after winning the RWC, but he sadly feel the need to thow stones...very strange.

I recall the Aussie press writing the headline "is that all youve got?" over a picture of Wilko during the '03 RWC, conveniently ignoring the 3 tries we had run in against them kust a few months before in (I think) Brisbane.

Its just a fairly typical and convenient mind set to take. The old adage "England dont score tries" isnt even true today. In fact we are quite regularly the leading try scorers in the 6N. For someone to say that England under SCW didnt score tries against quality opposition is just idiotic.

"SCW made sure England Played plenty of minnows " What minnows is atukiwikiwi referring to? The other 6N teams? Thats a bit disrespectful to the likes of Wales, Ireland, France and Scotland. Anyway SCW wouldnt have to "make sure" that the 6N was palyed seeing as its the oldest international tournament (or an evolved version of) in world rugby.

Clueless comment.

HammerofThunor wrote:Welshmushroom. Those 14 players were simply the ones capped in about the last four years. That shows that a large number of players have been capped between 20-22 years old. These are the guys coming through the newish acadamies. How many have been capped later than that?

Easter - played in the devision below
Foden - wanted to play scrum half, delayed his introduction
Wood - playing at Worcester probably didn't help his chances. Also mostly playing 6 due to Sanderson.

Anyone else?

On top of these Wilkinson, Moody, etc were all capped young. And then we have players like Geraghty, Cipriani, Rees, Crane, Tait etc who we all capped young but either got injured or out of form. There is no evidence anywhere that England don't cap players until they're 25. There is however a lot of young players in the Priemership who aren't getting capped. But this is at least partially because there are too many of them to cap.

The premiership squads are generally around 30+acadamy. There currently around 117 English players starting every week. With another 120 either on the bench or not selected (+acadamy and bigger squads). That would be enough for 8 squads of 30 (and the extras adding the extras needed). So 30 English players + 5 foreigners + acadamy? I think that's plenty.

But I don't want to see it because I don't think it's a probably now.

10 is a problem at the moment. We've only got Flood (and Ford for some reason behind Staunton) at Tigers. Hodgson and Farrell at Saracens. Myler and Lamb at Saints. Burns and Taylor at Gloucester. Clegg at Quins behind Evans. Carlisle and Goode at Worcester. And then the odd person else where as backup.

I'd say the issue with average foreign players is that the younger players from the weaker clubs would rather be in the squad for the stronger teams and push for starting place rather than start at the weaker sides. As soon as they make a name they move on. Because of this the weaker sides either keep picking young players, develop thema nd then lose them. Or bring in players who are basically just in it for the money. So in the short term this is what they do. It's not the best but it keeps them in the premiership (or not in some cases). However, surely you're suggesting getting rid of these clubs completely? They contribute more to player development than nothing at all. Currently only one side is failing to complete in the premiership and that's Newcastle (largely due to the repeated loss of all their talented players and the replacement with average players who don't really care beyond their job).

I think you add a number of other clubs. Take Sale for example:-

Main Roster consists of 34 players. Take away non English International capped players (Vernon, Powell, Peel, Lavea, Tuitupou, Leota, Lewaravu, Ostrikov, Buckley & Dickinson)
leaves you with 24 players to select from.

Lets look a little deeper though. Ward, Easter, Mathie, Macleod, Tuculet, McKenzie, Cobilas & Jones are here on residency alone. None are really English and some of those will end up liklely getting capped for other Nations. So that additional 8 only leaves 16 English Players.

When you then consider Sheridan, Fourie and Cueto are at the end of their careers at this stage and wont feature at the 2015 WC, moving forward any selector is left with 13 realistic Sale options (which are Croall, Imiolek, Thomas, Myall, Gaskell, Seymour, Cliff, Miller, Amesbury, Addison, Brady, Burrell & Thornley). None of them have any caps for England and few feature regular enough for Sale to really stand a chance of selection. A third of the squad are genuinely English born.

Just to look at the other end of the spectrum ill take a look at Saracens.

Squad 40 - take away capped non english players 12(Gill,Brits,Smit,Nieto,Smith,Brown,Burger,de Kock, Hougaard, Ratuvou, Tagicakibau, Wyles)
leaving 28 players.

Looking at the people brought in from other countries non capped. (Saunders, Melck, Maddock, Joubert, du Plessis, Barritt, Penney, Mordt, Botha & Stevens - both admittedly capped by England through residency) Those 10 would leave 18 available english players.

Remove players to old to feature at the next WC in 2015 - Hodgson, Borthwick & Vyvyan your down to 15 players. Of those 15 players only 2 are currently capped in Wigglesworth and Strettle. Admittedly Goode has potential but at 23 suprisingly still no caps. Thats already less than a third of the original squad.

I'm not picking on Sale or Saracens. I could have picked out any number of clubs currently looking to exploit residency.

My point in all this is that it is clear. Clubs dont really care about England. Just their own situations. Thats not condusive to International Rugby.


And look i appreciate that changing the system is against the clubs and fans. Keep in mind that Welsh Club Rugby spanded over 100 years of history. And as a fan im glad they went to regions because we could not support 12/14 teams financially. In the end it was difficult and there are still plenty of bitter club fans in the country but in the end it was the right thing to do. I expect the change to impact Wales's fortunes in decades to come.

So it can be done, but England won't change or are leaving it to late.

Was it deliberate or by accident that you picked probably the worst two teams for NEQ players? The number of EQ players in the premiership since it was originally founded was around 60-65% (increasing over the last couple of years). That's for 12 clubs. 65% of 12 is 7.8. As I said the current number of English players would support 7-8 English clubs (with a handful of NEQ players). For example the Quins have had 1 or 2 NEQ players in their starting 15 and generally 4 in the playing squad at most. If we truly want to do the best for the English international side we would reduce the number of teams to 5 and have 100% EQ players. Not because of the number of players available but because if all the best players are in a few teams they're used to playing together and can bond as a team easier at international level.

As you mentioned previously the issue comes down to specific player positions rather the number in general. This tends to go in cycles with different positions being a problem at different times. And no way we can really regulate it like Ireland does (a similar problem in Wales. Not so long ago most backrows were NWQ (with Tiatia, Rush, Lyons and Bearman as the No. 8, with Molitika, McDonald, Holah, etc playing as well), now it's much much improved but there nothing the WRU could actively do about it).

I'm not sure what you mean by

I'm not picking on Sale or Saracens. I could have picked out any number of clubs currently looking to exploit residency

Why would the clubs care about residency?

Most clubs do care about English rugby because most of their players are English, they're run by English people and on a more practical slant, when England do well more people are interested in rugby. However it's not given the overwhelming priority that it is in other countries. That isn't always a bad thing and is the way most English rugby fans want it. Does this mean the best situation for the international team? no but then at least it gives us an excuse when we lose

Hopefully the regions will garner the support in Wales they deserve but if the attendances stayed as they are, and no region ever won the HEC (or get to a final), but Wales do really well at international level, would most Welsh fans be happy? Probably. I don't think it would be the same in England. Just different priorities.


Just a few musings from someone who is happy to admit they don't have a clue what they're talking about

Just my opinion again, but moving to regions would be the death knell for English Rugby.

I have explained why in this and other threads, so will not bore you again.