England v New Zealand - 2 November 2024

[AlRums]

Joe Marler: England prop retires from international rugby

England prop Joe Marler retires from international rugby having won 95 caps.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Saintjay]

Ireland, France and SA play a game that suits there strengths. With the players at there disposal. It still comes down to needing 4\5 world class players of a number who'd make a world 23 in your squad.

I'm not sure Borthwick knows what game plan he wants. I think he wants to be Saracens/Leicester of old. Whilst trying to get the Saints / Quins more attack minded players to fit that.
He seems stuck between what he wants.

Unfortunately England's level is 4 or 5 in the world. I can't see it changing and it seems about right tbh.

 

[BPM]

I think there's a lot of truth to this. Paul Gustard tried to turn Quins in to Saracens, failed and then we won a ***le playing a style that suited the players. There's no point picking attacking players and saying you want to play ambitious rugby, when that all disappears on game day.

On England's level being 4th or 5th, I think a lot of that depends on factors totally out of our control. SA are always or thereabouts but Ireland and France are in 'golden' eras that may not last. French rugby's popularity should give them the sustainability to continue at their current level but I'm not sure Ireland in have the same calibre of players coming through to replace those they'll be losing to Father Time. They also won't be able to import he next generation of Aki, Hansen and Lowe quite as easily.

 

[LIONSxv]

I think there's a lot of truth to this. Paul Gustard tried to turn Quins in to Saracens, failed and then we won a ***le playing a style that suited the players. There's no point picking attacking players and saying you want to play ambitious rugby, when that all disappears on game day.

Exactly this

The best example of this was watching Randall when he came. He boxed kicked more in 20 mins than he would in several Bristol games.

If SB wanted a no frills SH Randall is not that guy. The pass to Ford for the drop goal was high and floaty as at Bristol he would either snipe himself of inject pace and spread it wide

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I think there's a lot of truth to this. Paul Gustard tried to turn Quins in to Saracens, failed and then we won a ***le playing a style that suited the players.

Funnily enough a lot of Sale fans saying the same about Sanderson atm too
Sarries DNA runs deep

 

[BPM]

Definitely. Ironically, the one who seems most adaptable is McCall himself, although when they developed a more attacking style that was credited to Farrell.

 

[Geordie]

McCall is sheer class though....forget the players, how many coaches has he produced currently coaching at a high level

 

[Five Meters Out]

One other thing … Ben Earl's tackle technique needs attention. A bit like in the France game, an avoidable 'no arms' tackle cost us at a really important point of the game.

Players would prefer these grass cutter tackles were carded ahead of deliberate knock downs

 

[Five Meters Out]

Next time England lining up match winning drop goal in the 80th minute v All Blacks, I am certain they will ensure they have the half Cam Roigard trapped in the ruck.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

I think there's a lot of truth to this. Paul Gustard tried to turn Quins in to Saracens, failed and then we won a ***le playing a style that suited the players. There's no point picking attacking players and saying you want to play ambitious rugby, when that all disappears on game day.

On England's level being 4th or 5th, I think a lot of that depends on factors totally out of our control. SA are always or thereabouts but Ireland and France are in 'golden' eras that may not last. French rugby's popularity should give them the sustainability to continue at their current level but I'm not sure Ireland in have the same calibre of players coming through to replace those they'll be losing to Father Time. They also won't be able to import he next generation of Aki, Hansen and Lowe quite as easily.

why will they not be ale to import players? because thr french have more money?

 

[Grizwald]

why will they not be ale to import players? because thr french have more money?

It's become more difficult to import players due to the length of residency required.

Ireland seem to a system which is optimised for the size of population and the number of provisional sides.

 

[BPM]

Correct. Raising the residency requirements from 3-5 years simply means that it's less likely they'll have Kiwis, South Africans and Aussies swelling their ranks unless they're Irish qualified through a parent/grandparent.

Given that their best team includes three Kiwis (JGP, Aki and Lowe) and an Australian (Hansen), it's not insignificant. Although, success breeds success, so I would imagine there has been an increase in kids playing the game in Ireland since they became a top side.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Correct. Raising the residency requirements from 3-5 years simply means that it's less likely they'll have Kiwis, South Africans and Aussies swelling their ranks unless they're Irish qualified through a parent/grandparent.

Given that their best team includes three Kiwis (JGP, Aki and Lowe) and an Australian (Hansen), it's not insignificant. Although, success breeds success, so I would imagine there has been an increase in kids playing the game in Ireland since they became a top side.

England post 03 shows you absolutely can't take that as read.

Although the Irish are probably a bit smarter than we were / will ever be.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I think England will struggle to get past us consistently with the current contrast in club / provincial structure. Since 03, I think it's fair to say the only sustained period where England were a better team than Ireland was 2016 - 2020 and that Ireland have been the better of the two more often than not. I think it's also a pretty good time period to use because 04 is when the Irish team started to see some success from their (late) adaptation to the pro game and when England lost their core group of elite players who were at a level the game hadn't seen before due to their early and positive adaptation to the pro game. 04 was a somewhat more level playing field that hadn't really ever existed between the two before given the status of the game here in the 20th century.

That's all to say, that three residency guys aren't why we're better than England and all of them have only worked out as products of a massive advantage Ireland has. The IRFU controls how the provinces, and any Irish representative side play and the primary objective of each of those teams is to churn out international players, club trophies aren't the main indicator of success at that level for the IRFU. There's certain core skills that every province bases their game around, the shapes and formations are different so each side can work optimally within the system but every player is being assessed by the same KPIs and training and gameplans are largely focused on improving the skills related to them. This is also why you see Farrell pluck guys from provincial benches and turn them into first XV internationals while other provincial top performers don't make Ireland squads.

Meanwhile England have somewhere between 8 and 12 prem teams depending on the time of year, all playing to their own strengths with their primary objective being to win the prem and then a European comp, if anything a top performer not playing international rugby is the perfect employee. From the perspective of a club fan, this is far better imo, but I think it limits success for England. Saints, Sarries, Tigers, Quins and Bath are all playing rugby very differntly from each other and providing the core of the international side. There's nothing a coach can do to create a system to suit all the top performers on all of these teams and the initial challenge becomes selecting players from the clubs who are good enough for international rugby and capable of playing whatever way England are going to play, there'll be bad selections here naturally that waste squad exposure and match minutes on unsuitable players. The next step is often morphing players who can play the system into the players they need to be, this takes time and will limit how often England are reaching optimal levels of performance. Take those two issues that are far less of a problem in Ireland, multiply it by about 15+ positions in any given extended England squad, add in that the standard of coach and player which will vary more than Ireland because of the lack of instruction manual, and all of a sudden the numbers advantage that England have looks like a bit of an afterthought.

England either need to gain control over how the clubs play or need a dominant English club, the first won't happen and the second is uncontrollable. So unless the structure below the EPS sees big change, I can only see England remaining a team whose level of play will vary significantly over each 5-10 year period whereas while we might not have the raw talent we saw a lot of success with from 2021-23, we'll generally be getting the very best out of the not massively limited source of talent thay we do have so whatever about the peaks of each team, Ireland's troughs shouldn't be as low.

 

[BPM]

Is anyone outside of Leinster consistently producing though? I'm a fairly regular attendee at Ravenhill and while Ulster have a fairly decent pipeline of good players coming through (Hume, Postlethwaite, Stewart etc.), I'm not sure they're going to be truly top class. You could say similar for Munster and Connacht.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Is anyone outside of Leinster consistently producing though? I'm a fairly regular attendee at Ravenhill and while Ulster have a fairly decent pipeline of good players coming through (Hume, Postlethwaite, Stewart etc.), I'm not sure they're going to be truly top class. You could say similar for Munster and Connacht.

There's many more informed than I on this, yourself included I'm sure, but haven't Ireland done pretty well over the last few years in terms of under 20 6N wins?

I know that's not the best metric but not a bad indicator for the future. You don't need a whole team of world class players either. A handful will do, alongside 10 very good players and a good coaching set up.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I think England will struggle to get past us consistently with the current contrast in club / provincial structure. Since 03, I think it's fair to say the only sustained period where England were a better team than Ireland was 2016 - 2020 and that Ireland have been the better of the two more often than not. I think it's also a pretty good time period to use because 04 is when the Irish team started to see some success from their (late) adaptation to the pro game and when England lost their core group of elite players who were at a level the game hadn't seen before due to their early and positive adaptation to the pro game. 04 was a somewhat more level playing field that hadn't really ever existed between the two before given the status of the game here in the 20th century.

That's all to say, that three residency guys aren't why we're better than England and all of them have only worked out as products of a massive advantage Ireland has. The IRFU controls how the provinces, and any Irish representative side play and the primary objective of each of those teams is to churn out international players, club trophies aren't the main indicator of success at that level for the IRFU. There's certain core skills that every province bases their game around, the shapes and formations are different so each side can work optimally within the system but every player is being assessed by the same KPIs and training and gameplans are largely focused on improving the skills related to them. This is also why you see Farrell pluck guys from provincial benches and turn them into first XV internationals while other provincial top performers don't make Ireland squads.

Meanwhile England have somewhere between 8 and 12 prem teams depending on the time of year, all playing to their own strengths with their primary objective being to win the prem and then a European comp, if anything a top performer not playing international rugby is the perfect employee. From the perspective of a club fan, this is far better imo, but I think it limits success for England. Saints, Sarries, Tigers, Quins and Bath are all playing rugby very differntly from each other and providing the core of the international side. There's nothing a coach can do to create a system to suit all the top performers on all of these teams and the initial challenge becomes selecting players from the clubs who are good enough for international rugby and capable of playing whatever way England are going to play, there'll be bad selections here naturally that waste squad exposure and match minutes on unsuitable players. The next step is often morphing players who can play the system into the players they need to be, this takes time and will limit how often England are reaching optimal levels of performance. Take those two issues that are far less of a problem in Ireland, multiply it by about 15+ positions in any given extended England squad, add in that the standard of coach and player which will vary more than Ireland because of the lack of instruction manual, and all of a sudden the numbers advantage that England have looks like a bit of an afterthought.

England either need to gain control over how the clubs play or need a dominant English club, the first won't happen and the second is uncontrollable. So unless the structure below the EPS sees big change, I can only see England remaining a team whose level of play will vary significantly over each 5-10 year period whereas while we might not have the raw talent we saw a lot of success with from 2021-23, we'll generally be getting the very best out of the not massively limited source of talent thay we do have so whatever about the peaks of each team, Ireland's troughs shouldn't be as low.

I think the issue here comes from treating the Irish provinces as synonymous with Leinster. The Irish system has become very good at aligning the national side with a single club, so one almost functions as an extension of the other. The remaining Irish provinces, whilst punching above their weight, do not have the same degree of success at club level nor in terms of their contribution to the national side. Remove Leinster and the Irish system is fairly average.

Whilst I feel the English system is less good for cohesion between clubs and country, it offers more opportunity to see different styles at play. I think the issue is more that England rugby is so woefully managed that we can't exploit our strengths nor mitigate our weaknesses. We have one of the largest player pools to choose from yet stubbornly stick with favourites in some places and churn through players in others. We have huge numbers of experienced coaches to call on yet go with the knee jerk flavour of the month. We have the resources to be one of the top jobs in rugby yet haemorrhage support staff and fail to get people with proven track records in the top job. We should be able to negotiate good contracts because people are desperate for the gig yet find ourselves constantly being bent over a barrel paying above market rates for average performers.

I think the fundamental issue is that rugby has become professional but the RFU has not, it's still run by a bunch of moronic old boys who haven't got a ******* clue.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Is anyone outside of Leinster consistently producing though? I'm a fairly regular attendee at Ravenhill and while Ulster have a fairly decent pipeline of good players coming through (Hume, Postlethwaite, Stewart etc.), I'm not sure they're going to be truly top class. You could say similar for Munster and Connacht.

I think the issue here comes from treating the Irish provinces as synonymous with Leinster. The Irish system has become very good at aligning the national side with a single club, so one almost functions as an extension of the other. The remaining Irish provinces, whilst punching above their weight, do not have the same degree of success at club level nor in terms of their contribution to the national side. Remove Leinster and the Irish system is fairly average.

In terms of systems of promoting youth talent from underage to age grade to pro, the Leinster system is more or less exactly what Munster, Ulster and Connacht follow. Leinster just have about 40% of the population, relatively fewer GAA strongholds than the rest and the largest rugby stronghold in the country. Connacht and Ulster have only ever really provided a handful of players to the international squad at a time, it'd be great to see improvement but that's not the be all and end all. I would also think Connacht have only really pieced it together recently, they've had some top performers at 20s level that they'd never had before.

Munster are being quite underrated in these posts too, they were URC champions in 2023 and topped the log in 2024. Weren't a match for Saints last year in Europe but few were. There's an argument to be made that their crop from the last three u20s sides, which are three years unbeaten in the u20 6n, are better than the Leinster guys. It's all gone a bit crazy for them this season which is a worry, but impossible to judge the fallout from it.

Now it's not perfect, a small population mixed with it fighting soccer and the GAA will mean that there will be gaps from time to time (prop looks like it's going to be a real issue in the next world cup cycle or two) but progression to the international game is generally quite seamless when there's any sort of talent there. Joe McCarthy, Calvin Nash, Jamie Osborne and Jack Crowley all looked very comfortable taking positions from established starters so far this year and I expect three of them to be top class internationals over the course of their career.

Ultimately though Ireland are really only one full generation of Leinster players into the current academy set up (Sexton and Healy both would have come through a very different system) and have seen improvement on improvement. The other provinces have now tapped into the techniques used by Leinster and 20s results indicate that there are improvements there also. All that's to say that I don't see why anything more than a reversion to the average over the last 10 years should be expected for a sustained period and that has been comfortably in the top 4 for the most part.

Whilst I feel the English system is less good for cohesion between clubs and country, it offers more opportunity to see different styles at play. I think the issue is more that England rugby is so woefully managed that we can't exploit our strengths nor mitigate our weaknesses. We have one of the largest player pools to choose from yet stubbornly stick with favourites in some places and churn through players in others. We have huge numbers of experienced coaches to call on yet go with the knee jerk flavour of the month. We have the resources to be one of the top jobs in rugby yet haemorrhage support staff and fail to get people with proven track records in the top job. We should be able to negotiate good contracts because people are desperate for the gig yet find ourselves constantly being bent over a barrel paying above market rates for average performers.

I think the fundamental issue is that rugby has become professional but the RFU has not, it's still run by a bunch of moronic old boys who haven't got a ******* clue.

To be clear, I wasn't claiming that England / the RFU are working at peak performance (same for Ireland, I think there's a few specific gaps in the system). But I do think the issues you raised aren't exactly quick and easy fixes even for a well run union:

"We have one of the largest player pools to choose from yet stubbornly stick with favourites in some places and churn through players in others."

I think this goes back to my point regarding styles. International rugby is so heavily systems based these days that it's more about picking the most suitable player to the system rather than the best player. Often they'll be the same player but not always and it can be hard to identify. I think this is why Ben Youngs has so many caps when perhaps not being at the level of most of his peers at international rugby, livewire 9s were a dime a dozen in the prem but not preferred in Jones' Sarries influenced system and Youngs was a far better athlete than the 9s on Sarries books at the time. For the same reason France went through approximately 8 million centre pairings between 2011 and Galhie taking over.

All in all it turns into a lot of failed experiments and reluctance to remove working parts even if they're not really a point of difference for the team.

This could definitely be improved upon but any position of relative weakness is always going to experience this when chips are down.

"We have huge numbers of experienced coaches to call on yet go with the knee jerk flavour of the month. We have the resources to be one of the top jobs in rugby yet haemorrhage support staff and fail to get people with proven track records in the top job."

So I think this is partly bad management on the RFU's part and feeds into the above. There's no progression path in the system. Last time they tried internal progression with Lancaster, once it failed they went scorched earth and needlessly threw out some very good talent along with him. Top class assistants don't find England roles attractive because there doesn't seem to be a pathway to progress to the top job. If there's no proven pathway to the top job you have to hire externally when replacing a coach. If you're hiring externally you either need to pick whoever the top prem performer is at the time, provided they're willing to take it, or whoever the best guy on the market is and this won't always be world class operators.

Each time this happens, it brings a new coach, a new system, new players they want to try out, new failed experiments and a higher chance of safe picks becoming more prominent etc...

Equally, it's not that easy a fix because the RFU only have the international assistants to choose from to progress internally and they might not have the quality required, anyone else is bringing in a lot of change off the bat. In contrast, since 1998 Ireland have always either promoted an assistant to the top job or a provincial coach and in the current set up, any of them will be very aware of the Irish system and metrics that the team and players are being analysed by and judged on and have experienced building a gameplan within this environment.

"We should be able to negotiate good contracts because people are desperate for the gig yet find ourselves constantly being bent over a barrel paying above market rates for average performers."

No idea on this one. It obvioudly wouldn't be a major issue if you were paying loads to a good performer but England will always be the top salary I imagine.

Overall, I don't know how the RFU can be expected to continue to make the right coaching appointments based on progression through the system whilst not letting talent in the prem slip through the cracks. And I expect dominant England sides in the future to be built on the back of one or two dominant prem sides coupled with a strong coach capable of building an effective system around them. It's not quite lightning in a bottle but far more uncontrollable variables than any of the URC unions have to deal with in my opinion.

 

[IT157]

In terms of systems of promoting youth talent from underage to age grade to pro, the Leinster system is more or less exactly what Munster, Ulster and Connacht follow. Leinster just have about 40% of the population, relatively fewer GAA strongholds than the rest and the largest rugby stronghold in the country. Connacht and Ulster have only ever really provided a handful of players to the international squad at a time, it'd be great to see improvement but that's not the be all and end all. I would also think Connacht have only really pieced it together recently, they've had some top performers at 20s level that they'd never had before.

Munster are being quite underrated in these posts too, they were URC champions in 2023 and topped the log in 2024. Weren't a match for Saints last year in Europe but few were. There's an argument to be made that their crop from the last three u20s sides, which are three years unbeaten in the u20 6n, are better than the Leinster guys. It's all gone a bit crazy for them this season which is a worry, but impossible to judge the fallout from it.

Now it's not perfect, a small population mixed with it fighting soccer and the GAA will mean that there will be gaps from time to time (prop looks like it's going to be a real issue in the next world cup cycle or two) but progression to the international game is generally quite seamless when there's any sort of talent there. Joe McCarthy, Calvin Nash, Jamie Osborne and Jack Crowley all looked very comfortable taking positions from established starters so far this year and I expect three of them to be top class internationals over the course of their career.

Ultimately though Ireland are really only one full generation of Leinster players into the current academy set up (Sexton and Healy both would have come through a very different system) and have seen improvement on improvement. The other provinces have now tapped into the techniques used by Leinster and 20s results indicate that there are improvements there also. All that's to say that I don't see why anything more than a reversion to the average over the last 10 years should be expected for a sustained period and that has been comfortably in the top 4 for the most part.


To be clear, I wasn't claiming that England / the RFU are working at peak performance (same for Ireland, I think there's a few specific gaps in the system). But I do think the issues you raised aren't exactly quick and easy fixes even for a well run union:

"We have one of the largest player pools to choose from yet stubbornly stick with favourites in some places and churn through players in others."

I think this goes back to my point regarding styles. International rugby is so heavily systems based these days that it's more about picking the most suitable player to the system rather than the best player. Often they'll be the same player but not always and it can be hard to identify. I think this is why Ben Youngs has so many caps when perhaps not being at the level of most of his peers at international rugby, livewire 9s were a dime a dozen in the prem but not preferred in Jones' Sarries influenced system and Youngs was a far better athlete than the 9s on Sarries books at the time. For the same reason France went through approximately 8 million centre pairings between 2011 and Galhie taking over.

All in all it turns into a lot of failed experiments and reluctance to remove working parts even if they're not really a point of difference for the team.

This could definitely be improved upon but any position of relative weakness is always going to experience this when chips are down.

"We have huge numbers of experienced coaches to call on yet go with the knee jerk flavour of the month. We have the resources to be one of the top jobs in rugby yet haemorrhage support staff and fail to get people with proven track records in the top job."

So I think this is partly bad management on the RFU's part and feeds into the above. There's no progression path in the system. Last time they tried internal progression with Lancaster, once it failed they went scorched earth and needlessly threw out some very good talent along with him. Top class assistants don't find England roles attractive because there doesn't seem to be a pathway to progress to the top job. If there's no proven pathway to the top job you have to hire externally when replacing a coach. If you're hiring externally you either need to pick whoever the top prem performer is at the time, provided they're willing to take it, or whoever the best guy on the market is and this won't always be world class operators.

Each time this happens, it brings a new coach, a new system, new players they want to try out, new failed experiments and a higher chance of safe picks becoming more prominent etc...

Equally, it's not that easy a fix because the RFU only have the international assistants to choose from to progress internally and they might not have the quality required, anyone else is bringing in a lot of change off the bat. In contrast, since 1998 Ireland have always either promoted an assistant to the top job or a provincial coach and in the current set up, any of them will be very aware of the Irish system and metrics that the team and players are being analysed by and judged on and have experienced building a gameplan within this environment.

"We should be able to negotiate good contracts because people are desperate for the gig yet find ourselves constantly being bent over a barrel paying above market rates for average performers."

No idea on this one. It obvioudly wouldn't be a major issue if you were paying loads to a good performer but England will always be the top salary I imagine.

Overall, I don't know how the RFU can be expected to continue to make the right coaching appointments based on progression through the system whilst not letting talent in the prem slip through the cracks. And I expect dominant England sides in the future to be built on the back of one or two dominant prem sides coupled with a strong coach capable of building an effective system around them. It's not quite lightning in a bottle but far more uncontrollable variables than any of the URC unions have to deal with in my opinion.