ON FACEBOOK there is a group that put up photos of days of yore which had an England team with nine Lancashire players in it: Bond, Carleton, Slemen, Horton, Uttley, Beaumont, Neary, Smith, Cotton.
The structure of that era provided the pathway for those players to go club, county, division, international.
The RFU regard the game below the Premiership as community and they should pour funds into that 99 per cent of the game and let the Premiership pay for itself, while centrally contracting 35 England players like cricket.
This would give you a new structure: England contracted, Premiership...