WORLD OF RUGBY: Country must come first if England are to prosper
CHRIS FOY: Country must come first if England are to prosper again… central or shared contracts have become a necessity with Anthony Watson the latest set to join exodus to France
- More English players are hopping the Channel and playing club rugby in France
- The RFU must change accordingly to improve the fate of the England team
- The financial state of many of the 11 remaining Premiership clubs is perilous
With Anthony Watson in talks to join Castres and Jack Willis expected to stay at Toulouse after this season, the cross-Channel exodus of English players goes on and the RFU are under pressure to act.
The world’s richest union have previously avoided having to decide whether to prioritise protecting the domestic game or maximising their Test prospects.
While their counterparts in Wales, Australia and South Africa in particular have been torn between conflicting agendas, the RFU have been able to stand firm in insisting that only home-grown contenders can wear the Red Rose.
But their stance is now based on shaky ground. Lions wing Watson may leave Leicester this summer to join the growing English migration to the wealthy French game — drawn by the wages and the weather, booming interest and a gathering of Galacticos.
Luke Cowan-Dickie and Sam Simmonds will be off to Montpellier, Jack Nowell is joining La Rochelle, Joe Marchant has signed for Stade Francais and David Ribbans is Toulon-bound. Others will follow.
Anthony Watson is in talks to swap Leicester Tigers for French club Castres next season
He would be another English player in France, alongside Stade Francais signing Joe Marchant
But this should not be seen as a doomsday scenario. Rugby has been tarnished by over-zealous protectionism, which amounts to restraint of trade. International caps have long been used as a tool to suppress transfer-market upheaval, by only offering them to those who stay at home.
THE LAST WORD
Next weekend, the Champions Cup returns, in two continents, for a last-16 round which won’t do much for rugby’s carbon footprint.
Harlequins are off to Cape Town to face URC champions the Stormers while Munster will be on South Africa’s east coast to take on the Sharks.
Meanwhile, the Bulls from Pretoria are heading north to take on Toulouse. Due to a commercial deal, there is every chance that hordes of rival players could end up bumping into each other in transit at Doha airport, as they make long journeys to take part in what has become an unwieldy event.
It all resumes with a closer contest on Friday as Leicester host Edinburgh and the Tigers will expect to prevail at Welford Road, despite Steve Diamond adding his nous to the visitors’ set-up.
Saracens should beat the Ospreys on Sunday, so there are likely to be at least two English clubs in the quarter-finals, while Exeter will be fired-up to despatch Montpellier at Sandy Park, before three of their players defect to the other side.
It is a sad indictment of a sport still struggling to achieve stability and buoyancy nearly three decades after turning professional.
England players moving to France should not be viewed as a disastrous development. Going to Toulon didn’t harm Jonny Wilkinson too much — far from it. The same could be said for the Armitage brothers and, more recently, Zach Mercer and Scotland’s playmaker genius, Finn Russell.
Frankly, even if all restrictions were lifted, wealthy Gallic suitors are not suddenly going to hoover up the top 50 English players, but coaches and administrators here are desperate to retain control of talent amid a budget-cutting crisis. Steve Borthwick is pressing the RFU to ease their foreign policy while, from the other side, club directors of rugby are hell-bent on halting the exodus.
So what can English rugby do to stem the tide? We’re back into the perennial central contracts debate again, which makes sense.
While the union had a rough ride during Covid and had to make a raft of redundancies, Twickenham acts as a phenomenal cash machine so a solution involving enhanced central investment is the only viable answer.
Saracens have developed so many players for England and they have trouble affording to keep them once their profiles and wage demands rocket.
The club’s director of rugby, Mark McCall, revealed a progressive vision last week when he said: ‘It should be top of the agenda —central contracts. There is an opportunity to do something a bit differently and for club and country to work very closely together over a particular player. Maybe share his salary.
‘It is a potential solution when you see how well the Irish system works. Central contracts work well for both the provinces and Ireland. It is a bit different here, there are more clubs, but I’m sure a sensible solution can be arrived at.’
As the Ulsterman says, the Irish system works very well. The union there award central contracts to leading players — the number has veered between 12 and 21 at different times — and others are on provincial contracts. Ireland head coach Andy Farrell and the IRFU control player workloads in the national interest. The upshot has been a golden era of success for Ireland and for Leinster.
After the autumn collapse of Wasps and Worcester, there are 11 Premiership clubs remaining and aside from Bristol and one or two others, the financial state of the domestic elite is precarious. This is the right time for the RFU to seize greater control in return for central or shared contracts.
For a third successive year, England are in post-mortem mode after losing three out of five games in the Six Nations. This time, it has led to hand-wringing about a broken system.
England are assessing their problems after another three defeats in their Six Nations campaign
The trouble is that there have always been too many competing agendas and too much self-interest to emulate the Irish or New Zealand models, where the unions create an aligned structure designed to maximise the chance of Test success. Clubs here are autonomous rather than mere cogs in a machine.
France are the other force at present but English rugby has no immediate hope of copying the model across the Channel, either. It is founded on mass-market appeal, municipal and state support, and formidable corporate sponsorship. When the World Cup takes place there later this year, the French game will become even more shiny, powerful and popular.
But the RFU have to do something of substance now, rather than just make minor tweaks to the club-country agreement which has become unfit for purpose.
The exodus is happening and ideally Borthwick would be free to select whoever he wants, wherever they are. But if there must be protectionism, the union hierarchy need to show vision by driving through reforms, like central contracts, which should have happened at the start of the professional era.
How the rest of the rugby world decides who is available for selection
Argentina
Since the Jaguares franchise were shut out of Super Rugby, all of the top stars moved abroad again, so Michael Cheika can call up any of them but faces player release challenges.
Australia
The revised ‘Giteau’s Law’ means the Wallabies can pick — for any campaign — up to three players based abroad who either have 30-plus caps or served in the domestic system for five years.
England
The RFU have deemed that players based overseas are not eligible for Test selection, unless there are ‘exceptional circumstances’, which are undefined but rarely invoked.
France
No one is off-limits for coach Fabien Galthie as all the top players are based in their own Top 14 league, where a quota system has created a greater depth of home-grown talent.
Ireland
A core of the squad are on lucrative central contracts and the IRFU manage their workload, so most Irish players stay at home. Johnny Sexton was selected when at Racing 92.
Italy
There are no restrictions on who Kieran Crowley can pick for the Azzurri. While several players represent Benetton (Treviso) and Zebre, others are at clubs across France and the UK.
New Zealand
There has always been a strict policy that only those who play in New Zealand can represent the All Blacks, but there have been increasing instances of lucrative sabbaticals in Japan.
Scotland
As well as selecting a number of players who were born abroad, Gregor Townsend is also free to call up any Scots based overseas, such as Finn Russell at Racing 92.
South Africa
The Springboks used to require overseas players to have 30 caps to be eligible for selection, but that was relaxed to allow the likes of Faf de Klerk to earn recalls and inspire their 2019 World Cup win.
Wales
From 2017, the so-called ‘Gatland’s Law’ only permitted the selection of players with 60 or more caps based abroad. That threshold has now been reduced to 25.
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