England vs Fiji 26th August 23

[saulan]

But the UK does have BUCS super rugby and is a legit pathway to professional rugby to catch late bloomers. I don't think the issue is things happening outside of the RFU's control but rather the things they do control. The relationship with the clubs has resulted in players being available 50% of the time (hurting the premiership) and a senior national team that has been directionless for the last 4 years.

I don't disagree with you with the control issue. Having the league out of the control of the union which may target short term profit benefits rather than sustainability and development of the game and players has not helped.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

I don't disagree with you with the control issue. Having the league out of the control of the union which may target short term profit benefits rather than sustainability and development of the game and players has not helped.

But the clubs should be extremely motivated to develop players. It is the cheapest method to get talented players. It serves both a rugby purpose and a financial purpose.

 

[saulan]

But the clubs should be extremely motivated to develop players. It is the cheapest method to get talented players. It serves both a rugby purpose and a financial purpose.

Are they doing as well as what a union driven tournament would be at developing their own players though? It's the right decision for the long-term, but when you have squads being cut and a glut of talent from two teams disappearing, are they driving the junior development or are they looking at more short term gains? I can't see England's approach being better than the SA or Irish set up. Leinster has been a conveyer belt of quality talent.

 

[j-dawg]

A lot of blame can be put on the coaching staff and I definitely think they were the wrong group for the job.

But let's go back to 2016... The England team weren't as bad as they are now when EJ took over. They just needed to beef the pack back up.... So they made Hartley captain, bought back a motivated Haskell and were lucky that a bunch of Saracens players were peaking (Billy in particular). It worked for a few years, but the early signs of decay was there even before the 2019 RWC.

Yes, they caught fire and made the final in that tournament. We had a fit Tuilagi playing great rugby, and Underhil/Curry who both kind of came out of no where at the perfect time. I also think we caught a bunch of teams off guard who were not at their best at the time... let's not forget that we looked pretty average for the two previous 6N tournaments. I think the decay started a lot earlier than many of us would like to think. A lot of these players (Itoje, Billy, Farrel etc) were starting to not look like world class players as early as 2018 IMO.

The RWC final shown to us that we were indeed a lot further away than we wanted to believe after beating an OK Australian team (that we were beating all the time anyway) and a NZ team that weren't as good as they had been in the past with a lot of ageing players set to retire.

We then gradually started to decline more and more after the world cup... You could even see it at club level with our biggest teams getting drubbed by European teams. And it has been downhill ever since. We have basically had no good generations coming up through the ranks for a long time... While the likes of France and Ireland have had amazing u20 teams in recent times. Something has gone wrong with our schools and academy system in general... We are simply not producing enough world class quality players and have been leap frogged by our competitors because of that.

Look at the player shortage at key positions. The best tight head prop we've got is probably Kyle Sinkler who can't scrummage to save his life. No decent 12s, no decent enforcers at tight head lock (I am hoping Lewis Chessum can be that guy but alas)... On a positive note, the u18s look pretty good, and their captain who plays hooker looks like he could be the next big thing, time will tell.

We need to definitely change the coaching staff, but it won't solve the generational issues. We need to completely restructure the entire system. The RFU need a complete overhaul and even though it pains me to say it being an active player at grassroots rugby, we need to allocate the grassroots funding to our schools (like Ireland done years ago) if we want the national team to get back to the promise land.

I think people forget how crap we were in the 18 months before the 2019 World Cup. We had some silly losing streaks if I recall? But then really showed up to that World Cup, minus the flaccid cock of a final. Putting away Aus, NZ and SA three weeks on the bounce was just too big of an ask for that group of players. The shame of it is we'll never know now whether EJ was the problem.

 

[Reiser99]

I think people forget how crap we were in the 18 months before the 2019 World Cup. We had some silly losing streaks if I recall? But then really showed up to that World Cup, minus the flaccid cock of a final. Putting away Aus, NZ and SA three weeks on the bounce was just too big of an ask for that group of players. The shame of it is we'll never know now whether EJ was the problem.

Disagree, world cup was not brillant outside the semi final. Beat a weak Aussie team in the quarters, missed France.

 

[BPM]

We were fine. France in 2019 were an entirely different beast to the French side we are seeing now and I'm confident we would have won the game based upon relative form at that time.

 

[SG59_]

Are they doing as well as what a union driven tournament would be at developing their own players though? It's the right decision for the long-term, but when you have squads being cut and a glut of talent from two teams disappearing, are they driving the junior development or are they looking at more short term gains? I can't see England's approach being better than the SA or Irish set up. Leinster has been a conveyer belt of quality talent.

I know it's not the same but again, in ice hockey, after the break down of the leagues, they focused on short term gains (import players) and claimed it would improve the junior players. It's nonsense of course. Yes, you need healthy competition and players from everywhere to improve, learn different styles of play etc, but the clubs go too far the other way with it and juniors etc don't get enough playtime to see any benefits or learn. Most just fill a quota and dissappear into the lower leagues before giving up.

Sorry for bringing up hockey, but I'm seeing a lot of similarities in the direction of travel.

 

[LIONSxv]

We were fine. France in 2019 were an entirely different beast to the French side we are seeing now and I'm confident we would have won the game based upon relative form at that time.

I would of been very confident of beating the French team in 2019. Just goes to show how low we have stooped and how the French have risen

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

Are they doing as well as what a union driven tournament would be at developing their own players though? It's the right decision for the long-term, but when you have squads being cut and a glut of talent from two teams disappearing, are they driving the junior development or are they looking at more short term gains? I can't see England's approach being better than the SA or Irish set up. Leinster has been a conveyer belt of quality talent.

All the club academies are RFU regional academies. It's not like in France where they have total control of youth rugby. France also has the advantage of youth sport being controlled by clubs and not by schools.

England still relies on schools in a similar way that SA and Ireland do. Schools have a financial motivation to keep producing rugby players as it keeps donations coming in.

I do think the premiership could do more to encourage academy spendings (exclude homegrown players from salary cap for example or some other mechanism).

I just don't get how the answer can be Clubs=bad when club produced players run the U20 the way they do. There is something else going on in England.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

There are plenty of talented players in the prem (for most positions) but Eddie stuck with the same cross for so long that we don't have a set of experienced players outside of ones that didn't have form 3 years ago and still don't really now.

Smith is very talented, as are a whole host of scrum halves that have been ignored, there are plenty of wingers who are sooo much better than our picks (can't believe Malins is in the squad) and there are decent forwards out there. We just haven't selected them and even if we did, our current gameplan would make any set of players look dross.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

All I can say is that Mercer is English developed.

 

[saulan]

All the club academies are RFU regional academies. It's not like in France where they have total control of youth rugby. France also has the advantage of youth sport being controlled by clubs and not by schools.

England still relies on schools in a similar way that SA and Ireland do. Schools have a financial motivation to keep producing rugby players as it keeps donations coming in.

I do think the premiership could do more to encourage academy spendings (exclude homegrown players from salary cap for example or some other mechanism).

I just don't get how the answer can be Clubs=bad when club produced players run the U20 the way they do. There is something else going on in England.

I agree with your points, and I don't specifically think clubs=bad. I just get the feeling that there aren't enough channels in England outside of the direct school systems to pick up the late bloomers, as well as keep developing the talent. The clubs in the UK have had a lot of foreign talent in their teams.

I know it's not the same but again, in ice hockey, after the break down of the leagues, they focused on short term gains (import players) and claimed it would improve the junior players. It's nonsense of course. Yes, you need healthy competition and players from everywhere to improve, learn different styles of play etc, but the clubs go too far the other way with it and juniors etc don't get enough playtime to see any benefits or learn. Most just fill a quota and dissappear into the lower leagues before giving up.

Sorry for bringing up hockey, but I'm seeing a lot of similarities in the direction of travel.

I also see the comparison here as a fair one and I think SA has had the opposite happening which has actually benefitted us now. Every year in Super Rugby our best players were getting sucked over to the North, leaving a lot of juniors to face up against New Zealand teams from a young age. Now we opened our selection policy and have our domestic teams in a stronger position financially than before, so we have an overflow of experienced talent.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Feels like the academy pathways are starting to shift slightly, with more players coming through from university rugby, but it's still a rarity

 

[Becca]

I agree with your points, and I don't specifically think clubs=bad. I just get the feeling that there aren't enough channels in England outside of the direct school systems to pick up the late bloomers, as well as keep developing the talent. The clubs in the UK have had a lot of foreign talent in their teams.


I also see the comparison here as a fair one and I think SA has had the opposite happening which has actually benefitted us now. Every year in Super Rugby our best players were getting sucked over to the North, leaving a lot of juniors to face up against New Zealand teams from a young age. Now we opened our selection policy and have our domestic teams in a stronger position financially than before, so we have an overflow of experienced talent.

We have too much foreign talent in our teams.

 

[McTallshort]

We have too much foreign talent in our teams.

That's an old augment that never really stands up. There are loads and loads of foreign players in France and to a lesser extent Ireland and it doesn't seem to effect them.

 

[Becca]

That's an old augment that never really stands up. There are loads and loads of foreign players in France and to a lesser extent Ireland and it doesn't seem to effect them.

We employ too many foreign players at the expense of bringing through English youngsters.

 

[BrokenWing]

to a lesser extent Ireland and it doesn't seem to effect them.

Cause they cap them.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

We have too much foreign talent in our teams.

Hmm, I don't buy this
If anything foreign talent is what helps our young guys progress (Faf mentoring Rafi and Gus, for example). Can be an issue in the tight 5 where ready made options often preferred to developing talent, but even then there's plenty of English talent getting plenty of game time

When you look at the teams of the season put together by the guardian and the telegraph:

15. S. Carreras (Arg), A.Goode (Eng) - Honourable mentions to J. Carpenter (Eng) and G. Furbank (Eng)
14. M. Carreras (Arg), M. Carreras (Arg) - Honourable mention T. Roebuck (Eng), T. Freeman (Eng)
13. O. Lawrence (Eng), O. Lawrence (Eng) - Honourable mention E.Daly (Eng)
12. B van Rensburg (RSA), Fraser Dingwall (Eng) - Honourable mention BVR (RSA)
11. C. Murley (Eng), C. Murley (Eng) - Honourable mentions to A. Radwan (Eng), OHC (Eng)
10. O. Farrell (Eng), O. Farrell (Eng) - Honourable mentions to Rob du Preez (RSA) and Paddy Jackson (IRE)
9. H. Randall (Eng), G. Warr (Eng) - Honourable mentions to B. Spencer (Eng), I. van Zyl (RSA)
8. J. Wiese (RSA), Jasper Wiese (RSA) - No honourable mentions to others, but I'd say Dan du Preez (RSA) is up there. Tom Willis and Zach Mercer both tearing it up in France and will likely be starters next season, though.
7. B. Earl (Eng), T. Pearson (Eng) - Honourable mentions to Curry x 2 (Eng)
6. T. Pearson (Eng), T. McFarland (Sam) - Honourable mentions to Curry x 2 and Jono Ross (Eng)
5. O. Chessum (Eng), JL du Preez (RSA) - Honourable mentions to J.Hill (Eng) and C. Henderson (was Eng at the time, now Sco)
4. JL du Preez (RSA), G. Martin (Eng) - No honourable mentions
3. N. Schonert (Eng), W. Stuart (Eng) - No honourable mentions
2. J. Montoya (Arg), J. Montoya (Eng) - No honourable mentions. A problem area for England but realistically there's a lot of English hookers playing, just none are much cop. C. Langdon will be a starter for Saints next season and will easily be the best option behind George/LCD
1. VRR (Eng), VRR (Eng) - Honourable mentions for Rodd, Genge, West, Obano (all Eng), can throw McIntyre (Eng) in there too as he was better in the scrum than all of them


Think the league is in a healthier state atm than it has been recently in terms of imports vs EQP

 

[Becca]

Hmm, I don't buy this
If anything foreign talent is what helps our young guys progress (Faf mentoring Rafi and Gus, for example). Can be an issue in the tight 5 where ready made options often preferred to developing talent, but even then there's plenty of English talent getting plenty of game time

When you look at the teams of the season put together by the guardian and the telegraph:

15. S. Carreras (Arg), A.Goode (Eng) - Honourable mentions to J. Carpenter (Eng) and G. Furbank (Eng)
14. M. Carreras (Arg), M. Carreras (Arg) - Honourable mention T. Roebuck (Eng), T. Freeman (Eng)
13. O. Lawrence (Eng), O. Lawrence (Eng) - Honourable mention E.Daly (Eng)
12. B van Rensburg (RSA), Fraser Dingwall (Eng) - Honourable mention BVR (RSA)
11. C. Murley (Eng), C. Murley (Eng) - Honourable mentions to A. Radwan (Eng), OHC (Eng)
10. O. Farrell (Eng), O. Farrell (Eng) - Honourable mentions to Rob du Preez (RSA) and Paddy Jackson (IRE)
9. H. Randall (Eng), G. Warr (Eng) - Honourable mentions to B. Spencer (Eng), I. van Zyl (RSA)
8. J. Wiese (RSA), Jasper Wiese (RSA) - No honourable mentions to others, but I'd say Dan du Preez (RSA) is up there. Tom Willis and Zach Mercer both tearing it up in France and will likely be starters next season, though.
7. B. Earl (Eng), T. Pearson (Eng) - Honourable mentions to Curry x 2 (Eng)
6. T. Pearson (Eng), T. McFarland (Sam) - Honourable mentions to Curry x 2 and Jono Ross (Eng)
5. O. Chessum (Eng), JL du Preez (RSA) - Honourable mentions to J.Hill (Eng) and C. Henderson (was Eng at the time, now Sco)
4. JL du Preez (RSA), G. Martin (Eng) - No honourable mentions
3. N. Schonert (Eng), W. Stuart (Eng) - No honourable mentions
2. J. Montoya (Arg), J. Montoya (Eng) - No honourable mentions. A problem area for England but realistically there's a lot of English hookers playing, just none are much cop. C. Langdon will be a starter for Saints next season and will easily be the best option behind George/LCD
1. VRR (Eng), VRR (Eng) - Honourable mentions for Rodd, Genge, West, Obano (all Eng), can throw McIntyre (Eng) in there too as he was better in the scrum than all of them


Think the league is in a healthier state atm than it has been recently in terms of imports vs EQP

We shall agree to disagree.

 

[McTallshort]

We employ too many foreign players at the expense of bringing through English youngsters.

Yeah again it's been used since the game went professional and it's didn't stop England winning things or English clubs. It's a red herring.