England. Discuss. They start the new year with bronze medals round their necks. No one else from the Six Nations managed to take anything tangible from the Rugby World Cup. As an achievement, it does not bear too much scrutiny, given the controversial draw from which they benefited, but those games still needed winning. And England’s only defeat was by a single point to the eventual champions in a game no one could have complained had they won.
In his first media session of the year, Steve Borthwick proclaimed their achievement and the foundation for the future it represented. The head coach also heralded, rightly, the performances of English clubs in the first two rounds of Europe before Christmas. The next couple of weeks will supply further food for thought on that front.
So far, so rosy, but not too much of the surface needs to be scratched at to reveal continuing deficits in the system. The annual audit of candidates for the squad reveals the usual pluses and minuses, with prop proving a particular headache this time. All three looseheads from the World Cup squad are doubts for the start of the Six Nations, with Bevan Rodd ruled out for all of it.
But it is those missing for reasons other than injury that hint at deeper fissures. Four of England’s World Cup squad are ineligible for the championship because they are at French clubs. And then there is the captain, Owen Farrell, who just does not want to play.
These issues affect international rugby, full stop. France’s captain will not be playing either. Antoine Dupont has chosen to throw his lot in with the France sevens team, as they prepare for the Paris Olympics. Farrell’s reasons for stopping – and we do not know if he will ever return to the England team or even just stay at Saracens – are more opaque, but we who care less about saying the right thing could file them with reasonable confidence under the category of “more trouble than it’s worth”.
What things are worth is likely to feature a lot in upcoming discussions of the England team. The latest eight-year agreement between the union, the clubs and the players winds down this summer and negotiations continue in earnest between all parties. Under the current terms, England players are paid £23,000 per match; under the mooted enhanced elite player squad arrangement, a preselected group of 25 will each be paid £150,000. That would represent some security for the chosen few, but for those used to playing a full season of England matches it looks like a pay cut.
Lewis Ludlam is said to have signed a contract with Toulon, which would mean a fifth member of the World Cup squad departing the English game – and with it the England team. “The rules are very clear that it’s English-based players,” said Borthwick of the eligibility criteria.
“We’ve got to create a system where the players want to stay in England. And they want to play for England because the experience they have playing for England is one that is stimulating and enjoyable. I’m hopeful those ones overseas will come back. They know I want them back. Joe Marchant knows I want him to come back.”
Borthwick also revealed that he had been to Paris to try to talk Henry Arundell into returning to England – and that he had been rejected. Arundell is apparently keen to play at the next World Cup. To that end, he has told Borthwick he will return the season before. We shall see.
English rugby is not used to this. Multiple other unions are and it is interesting to watch over the years how each has tried, and largely failed, to counter the pull of its best players to more lucrative, domestic markets. England have retained their “exceptional circumstances” clause relating to the eligibility of those playing abroad, but it seems they may soon have to start fleshing that out to include such awkward qualifications as Australia’s infamous “Giteau’s law” or Wales’s even-more-convoluted “Gatland’s law”.
Now that mighty England are starting to feel the pinch from more commercially powerful actors across the Channel (and the Japanese market is not going to become any weaker either), the international game as a whole may have to consider its position in rugby’s landscape. With perhaps the exception of cricket (and even that is changing), rugby union is the only sport that is driven commercially by its international game. After nearly three decades of the professional era, that may be starting to shift.
Most sports are driven by their domestic game, that staple of week in, week out action. Any international element is more of an occasional delicacy.
How this will play out is difficult to picture at the moment, with English clubs going out of business and the French flexing their muscles more and more aggressively. We can be sure the finances of multiple unions are under pressure too.
Borthwick’s words about making England an attractive place for his best players to return to sounded noble and hopeful. But the numbers get to us all in the end. Watching even England struggle, for all those bronze medals, is as unsettling to those wedded to the old ways as it is fascinating.
