NICK CAIN
READ HIS EXPERT OPINION EVERY WEEK
There is a double standard in English rugby that stands out as a carbuncle-like sign of the hopeless administration that blights the game in this country.
The blemish begins with England coach Steve Borthwick being prohibited from selecting players who are earning a living outside the Premiership, due to the pressure exerted by Premiership club owners/boards on the RFU to exclude them from playing for their national team.
Yet, at the same time those same clubs are stacking their rosters with overseas players who are not eligible for England. To make matters worse, these overseas signings are a barrier to young English-qualified players getting essential experience in their own country’s top two leagues.
Even more reprehensible is that Premiership owners can fund overseas signings with the money from the £264 million eight-year deal they have just secured from the RFU through the new Professional Game Partnership (PGP). This puts the RFU/Premiership in the absurd position of propping up the playing resources of other nations, while their own player – and coach – development is being severely handicapped by denying them money which should be allocated to English-qualified players.
How can the RFU possibly justify paying Premiership clubs to import overseas/non-eligible players while, at the same time, depriving Championship clubs – who are each currently existing on derisory RFU funding of £150,000 yearly – of the finance to support and develop young English talent?
A survey of the projected squads of the 10 Premiership clubs for the 2024/25 season illustrates the scale of the problem. Despite most clubs making significant cuts to their squad sizes, including overseas imports, the agreed maximum of 47 players per club – 35 senior and 12 aged 20 to 24 – still contains an extraordinary number who are overseas or non-English qualified.
There are c.118 non-English qualified players listed in Premiership squads, of which a minority are in the 20-24 age bracket. Taking the senior player total of 350 that is a 33.7 per cent no-go area for Borthwick, whereas taking the overall total of 470 players it is just over 25 per cent.
Based on a reasonable median calculation of 10 non-English qualified players in each club’s senior 35-man contingent, an average of 28.5 per cent of Premiership players are ineligible for England to select.
Being deprived of almost a third of the players in the country’s top league explains why the England team has been regularly short of strength-in-depth in almost every position at some stage over the last decade.
It has been particularly acute at inside-centre, where the over-dependency on Manu Tuilagi covered a 12-year span. There have also been dwindling supplies at scrum-half and No.8, and there are warning signs that lock could become another problem position.
However, the most damaged area is the front row, with a desperate shortage of Test quality props – particularly at tighthead. It is an enduring problem which has cost England dearly at the last two World Cups, and also influenced their narrow first Test defeat by New Zealand in Dunedin.
It is notable that last weekend’s round of North-South internationals highlighted an overall decline in the scrummaging prowess of not just England, but also Ireland and Wales, as all three nations lost their opening Tests.
The England and Wales scrums struggling was no surprise, and in England’s case the same applied to the excuses. However, the dismantling of the highly-rated Irish scrum in the last quarter of their battle with South Africa in Pretoria, including a Springbok penalty try, led to an immediate reaction from David Humphreys, the incoming IRFU performance director.
He announced this week that Irish provinces will be banned from signing overseas front row players from 2025.
Humphreys said the policy is aimed at discovering and developing Irish props and hookers of international quality, and that until this has been achieved there will be no overseas front rowers coming into the Irish system. Irish provinces have far fewer non-eligible players than the Premiership, so this action contrasts starkly with the RFU’s failure to tackle the shrinking of its own player pool, especially in front row forwards.
Erecting barricades to stop all non-English eligible players being employed by English clubs is not the aim of this column – but the RFU must implement a reduction which is more radical and wide-ranging than Ireland’s.
There is no doubt about the great benefits to be gained from player and coaching exchanges between all rugby union nations, and many English clubs have been net beneficiaries.
Saracens made huge strides with the help of their South African connection through Brendan Venter, and the arrival of a stream of elite players like Brad Barritt, Schalk Brits and Vincent Koch.
Likewise Northampton, who have benefited from a Kiwi connection that started with Buck Shelford’s influence as talismanic veteran. It was followed by two game-changing New Zealand coaches, first Wayne Smith, and more recently Chris Boyd.
The current transfer to England of the free-flowing attacking style Boyd developed in young Saints players like George Furbank and Tommy Freeman shows how influential these exchanges can be.
It is why there should be an RFU regulatory cap which allows for Premiership and Championship clubs to each sign up to a handful of high quality non-English eligible players, and allocates a limited number of licences for overseas coaches.
Instead, the RFU’s non-regulation has led to glut of non-England eligible Premiership players, whose blocking of homegrown talent is tantamount to self-harm.
For exclusive stories and all the detailed rugby news you need, subscribe to The Rugby Paper website, digital edition, or newspaper from as little as 14p a day.
