It was after watching their World Cup quarter-final loss to France that the Welshman with whom I was sharing a dollop of schadenfreude gave this majestic pronouncement: “It’s the sheer bloody arrogance of the English, their sense of entitlement that they deserve to win everything, that’s what annoys the rest of us.”
Now before you think this is a ‘let’s all laugh at England’ diatribe, let me assure you it is not. After all, unlike Scotland they have won World Cups in the round and oval ball games and they were at Qatar and we weren’t. Yet the dismissal of head coach Eddie Jones is one more proof that England, and especially the RFU, really do think they should win everything.
On sheer number terms they should. England has more players by far than any other rugby nation in these islands, third only to France and South Africa globally in the number of registered players. Their professional teams are richer than most elsewhere, even if the collapse of Wasps and Worcester showed that some owners have ingested a miasma of ambition without the concomitant moolah necessary to achieve their dreams.
