It’s time to consider talent, not geography

IF everyone is heading to French club rugby, including the England centurion Courtney Lawes, it makes Courtney Lawes right: rival unions need to rise above their envy and pick their Test teams on the basis of merit rather than geography.

Twickenham’s near-blanket rejection of players who dare cross the water in pursuit of the euro may ease Steve Borthwick’s selection process – the fewer realistic contenders for each position, the fewer difficult decisions the coach must make – but it is not hard to foresee a situation in which he would happily sacrifice a limb in exchange for the services of Paris-bound Owen Farrell.

Along with their counterparts in New Zealand, the England hierarchy have stuck with the “play here or don’t play at all” approach to international team-building, and thanks to the depth of their professional rosters, they have managed to avoid landing themselves in the kind of pickle we’ve seen in Wales and Australia. But the economic muscle of the domestic game in France – and, indeed Japan – is making this policy increasingly unsustainable.

Only last week, it was reported that Scott Robertson, the new head coach of the All Blacks, wants to see Sam Whitelock (35 years and 153 caps young) back in the Test fold, just a few months after the lock quit Christchurch, in the unforgivingly wet South Island, for the balmier climate of Pau, down in the Pyrenees.

It would be a long commute, that’s for sure, so if the great tight forward was interested, he’d have to abandon plans for a second season with his first European club. But even if he stays put, the very thought of it says something about the changing nature of our rugby age.