I would have no beef with a foreign-born England XV
If a player is eligible to play for Jones, the only question I would ask is: Is he good enough?
There will come a day in the not-too-distant future when Eddie Jones picks an England XV with more players born outside the country than in it. We already have Dylan Hartley, the Vunipola brothers, Nathan Hughes and Ben Te’o in the squad. Add into the mix Manu Tuilagi, Denny Solomona, Don Armand, Michael Rhodes, Brad Shields, Jono Ross and Jason Woodward, and it is easy to see how that could happen. A few years ago, I would have been uncomfortable with that prospect. Now I just want Jones to pick the best team he can.
Ideally, we would have 15 Englishmen born and bred. But that is not the way rugby works now. Argentina are pretty much the only team who have not used the eligibility rule to their advantage. That horse has bolted. This discussion needed to happen 20 years ago when New Zealand started using Fiji, Tonga and Samoa as their own super-academy.
Patriotism only forms part of any player’s motivation to play for their country. The £25,000 match fee that comes with playing for England helps. Some will have to decide whether their ultimate aim is to fulfil their childhood dream of representing the country of their birth or getting that extension they want for their house. For others, they want to play international rugby because they want to test themselves against the best.
Sometimes, it can just be through circumstance. Your path might be blocked because there is another player in the way or the coach just does not rate you. That can tear you apart. It is quite hard to rationalise in your head if you are playing well and not being picked. Look at Will Addison and Mike Haley. Both good players who were knocking on England’s door, but when it looked like it was going to open, they decided to leave Sale to move to Ireland.
I know many will not be able to understand that mentality. The man on the street will support the country of his birth. But a professional rugby player has a lot of other considerations to weigh up. The way to consider it is to imagine you grew up wanting to be a banker, and Barclays was the company you wanted to work for. If, suddenly, HSBC come in for you, do you say no because you are holding out for that call from Barclays that may never come?
Mike Catt was one of the first high-profile foreign-born players to play for England. He rocked up with a pair of white-tasselled loafers, white socks and jeans that were skintight, which in 1992 you just did not wear unless you were in the Bee Gees. He could not have been less English and yet was one of England’s best-ever players. He got picked on by the Twickenham crowd, but when I was in the squad, I did not look at him as South African.
I had the option of playing for Ireland. I had never been there until I was 18, but my grandfather was Irish. When they asked me, my father offered the only piece of decent advice he has ever given me. He said: “When you are in the changing room and the Irish guys are saying, ‘Let’s go out and smash these English so-and-sos’, will you be able to join in wholeheartedly?”
The answer was no, but that might not be the case for others.
In the past, I might have asked what message would picking someone such as Shields send to young English guys coming through the system? But if those guys are annoyed about someone coming in, that tells me that they are not strong enough or good enough to play international rugby.
The only way I look at it today is to ask, are they good enough? In the case of Woodward, the Gloucester full-back, and Ross, the Sale flanker, the answer is a resounding yes. Woodward is like Mike Brown with his competitiveness, but with added skill. He does not have any fear about running sideways across the field and waiting for someone to step out of the line.
Ross is a stronger, nastier version of Chris Robshaw, the type of guy you hate playing against, but would love to have on your side. If I was picking a team to play against South Africa, they would be nailed on and I would have no qualms about where they were born.