Bristol Bears director of rugby Pat Lam believes the Premiership’s “flawed” boundary system for academy recruitment is having a detrimental effect on the fortunes of the England team and wants to see wholesale changes to the structure.
England’s third straight finish outside of the top two in the Six Nations has once again shone a light on the country’s talent pool and with the World Cup on the horizon the question around how a country with greater financial resources than anyone else can continue to under-perform, is being debated once again.
It’s a nuanced and layered conversation for which there is no silver bullet but, for Lam, the problem starts with the lack of opportunities afforded to some of the nation’s leading talent based on nothing more than geography. Under salary cap rules, Premiership clubs can recruit and develop players into their first team from their academy without impacting their budget, under “homegrown credits” of up to £600,000, providing they have been signed from a predetermined area.
For Bristol that encompasses the city, South Gloucestershire and, from 2016, North and West Somerset, but as Lam points out includes just two of the 100 leading rugby schools in the country - Clifton College and Bristol Grammar School. By contrast, at the other end of the scale, Harlequins have a huge part of South London plus Surrey and Sussex, containing more than 20 of the best rugby schools.
That provides them with a considerably larger pool to promote from but also causes a logjam in terms of talent often leaving some individuals second, third or even fourth choice, when they could be starting for another Premiership academy side.
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The issue for Lam is that for Bristol, or anyone else, to then try and offer that opportunity, it doesn’t make financial sense, or at least is much more of a risk, because the salary and the fee they may pay to the club comes out of the salary cap, and all for an individual who may not be a bona fide first-team player for at two years.
As a result, he believes some of the country’s best talent has become either trapped or completely lost to the system, therefore reducing options at international level.
“I can tell you now that I’ve been here nearly six years, the system is flawed for young players,” Lam said. “When you look and you ask the question, and I used to always say this when I was back in New Zealand and coaching in Ireland, ‘how is the country that has the most resources, financially and player-wise, not the No1 rugby nation in the world?’ And the problem that you’ve got is that it’s the only country that has a system that has boundaries on young players which is, to me, the biggest problem you’ve got.
“What that means, and I do this is my whole coaching philosophy is that I’m a big believer in bringing through young players, is, and I only recognise this now because the salary cap got dropped to £5m, when you have boundaries, the top 100 schools in the country - let alone the other schools - where are they all? In that top 100, Bristol has two schools in the top 100; Harlequins have 23 schools in the top 100. Ourselves, Bath and Exeter have the least schools.
“If I wanted to bring a young player through, and invest 2-3 years in him. To do that I might have to pay him 20k but I have to pay Harlequins, who have done nothing at that stage - okay, he might have come through their academy - I’ve got to give them 30k; that 50k that I’ve paid goes into the salary cap. So why would I bother doing that?
“I know, I’ll go into the Championship and find someone who won’t play for England but he can at least play at this level. I might get him for 30k, that goes into my salary cap but at least I’ve got someone here.
“So this kid, what happens to him? He ends up maybe going to the Championship or he gets told to keep working but he’s missed an opportunity.”
Having coached in New Zealand at Auckland and Ireland with Connacht, Lam has witnessed first hand how other nations don’t have such stringent geographical regulations, to the betterment of players, clubs and the respective national teams.
The widening of youth recruitment means clubs don’t have to look to bring in as many first-team ready foreign stars who may cost more on the cap but provide instant returns. Likewise, for a club in Harlequins’ position of having such a rich resource it hands them a very obvious advantage in stockpiling young talent, due to the lack of immediate financial pressure to play them.
“If you think about it, 110 players every year should come out of school and go into the 11 clubs; the best 110, roughly. And, on average, 100 do but what is happening is a lot of them can only go to where their boundary is, because as a director of rugby of all the other teams, we have no incentive, because we’re all trying to get under the cap. And if I knew I could get that player if he’s not in my cap, it’s better for the player,” Lam said.
“So you’re missing out on a lot of talent and what we have to do is make the most of the pool. Out of the top 100, two in Bristol, that is, say, 30 players that are available, maybe two in each position, you look at the Harlequins or the London Irish catchment, what are you talking, there? 200-300 they can choose from.
“Everyone goes on about how we have to look after our own, but no country does that. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Ireland - you are free to go where you have got to go and that’s the way it should be.
“I even say it to my players, what’s your goal? To play for England. Would you go play in Northampton, if they wanted you? Well, yeah. Every kid just wants to play and be in that shop window.
“We’ve got 11 strong teams and what we’ve got to make sure is, at the moment, everyone looks after their own but it depends whether you’re lucky enough to be born in a certain area. And some places don’t have the depth of positions and I should be able to pick up any of these young players coming through and give them an opportunity of having a career. That there is a fundamental issue in this country.
“If I had my time again, because of my philosophy that I want to coach, it makes no sense to come and coach in Bristol, really. Go to Quins because you’ve got all the talent coming through for free. Free!”
In 2020, Premiership clubs voted to reduce the salary cap from £7m to £5m in the wake of Covid-19 and the impact on the league’s finances with just one marquee player now paid outside the sum. Bears were one side against the measure and have since been balancing their books to remain under the limit, with the change having a huge impact on Lam’s ability to retain some of his best players.
“I was trying to work out, why do some clubs want to keep the salary cap down? I’d keep the salary cap at five million as well if I had a converter belt at a rugby factory with guys coming through that I didn’t need to put through the salary. I was trying to work it out and, as I dug a bit deeper, I was ‘ah-ha, well,’” Lam said. “And because of our area and the schools and what’s available to you - Exeter, Bristol, Bath - we are the ones who have the smallest area.
“I honestly believe, get rid of it and let the young players (play). Each team isn’t going to sign 20-30 kids, each year you’re only signing up to 10; how many are missing out on opportunities and how many are getting lost? Just because they happen to be at a school in London or elsewhere where there happens to be four guys who are just as good as me, but I’m still good enough.
“Look at the New Zealand system, how many Aucklanders are playing for the Crusaders down in Canterbury or playing in Wellington? But they don’t see it this way. They see it as a pathway to come through and play for the All Blacks; England are losing a lot of players because of this academy boundary system. And you’d get more English players coming through at the Premiership clubs because the talent is there but you want to invest in someone for 2-3 years and bring them through in the programme.”
As Lam notes about rugby’s slightly unique position whereby players, generally, don’t become senior starters until at an older age to other team sports - due to the physicality - game time can be a problem for academy talent.
Bears lean on their relationships with Hartpury, Dings Crusaders and Taunton Titans to provide opportunities to play but changes are needed at central level with the former Samoa international even proposing an NFL-style draft where teams can take it in turns to sign the best Under-18s each year. Spreading that talent across the league would, in theory, also allow for a more organised youth competition, helping the overall pathway into the first-team and onto the international stage.
“I believe if you open those boundaries or you do a draft system,” Lam said. “Then every year there are 10 English players at 18 coming in, so you’ve always got these guys coming through so it opens up the chance of a Under-21 or 23 league and then you can play in that league.
“I had a good chat to Conor O’Shea about this and he’s had good experience of what goes on in Ireland and Italy and when you come from areas outside of England you say the same thing.
"Because we’re all trying to do the same thing, how do we make the England team stronger? That’s part of us, because we’re in the English system. When I was at Connacht it was, how do we make the Irish system stronger? And that was spreading the talent, we got a lot of boys who were happy to be Leinster B-team, players but to stop the foreign players coming in we ended up spreading the talent to the local market and that made a big difference.
"(It’s about) if you have the courage and the wisdom to change, and I think it’s a hugely flawed system.”
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