McCALL OR BAXTER CAN LEAD ENGLAND

I can’t think of two individuals who have contributed more in recent seasons to English club rugby than Mark Mccall and Rob Baxter and I’m delighted to see their clubs — Saracens and Exeter — fighting out the Premiership final at twickenham tomorrow. think back eight months and English rugby was pretty low after the bitter disappointment of the World cup but these two clubs have helped restore the feelgood factor. they’ve played bright, positive and intelligent rugby domestically and in Europe. Premiership teams picked up the gauntlet after the World cup and produced quality performances to excite the fans. three clubs in the last four of the champions cup is evidence of that and gives Eddie Jones a growing pool of talent to select from. English rugby is heading in the right direction again. tomorrow Mccall starts with a huge advantage in that former centres always make the best coaches! Seriously, he has done an incredible job with Saracens where their players are treated exceptionally well with a great deal of thought and science going into their programmes. Mccall is at the centre of that and chairman nigel Wray remains a huge influence. He has always insisted on high standards. Would you be happy to let your rugby-mad young son join Saracens? absolutely, yes. Mccall has surrounded himself with great backroom staff and some of England’s next generation of coaches such as alex Sanderson and Kevin Sorrell and, of course, Paul Gustard before he got the call from Eddie Jones. You always sense a ton of energy and passion coming off that Saracens back-bench. For a few seasons now Saracens under Mccall have been very good, but this season they have moved up a couple of notches. It’s almost invidious to mention names but I can’t think of anybody in Europe playing better than Owen Farrell or Maro Itoje. Big performances from them tomorrow will also give great momentum for England as they head to australia. I’ve argued many times that the secret to good coaching is talent identification and selection. Mccall possesses it and so does Baxter. Baxter picks out good players who are perhaps marking time and need a change. He brought Dean Mumm in from the nSW Waratahs and the big lock immediately played his way back into the australia squad. He recruited Julian Salvi, thomas Waldrom and Geoff Parling from Leicester and what great signings they have proved. Wings James Short and Olly Woodburn are rejuvenated since moving to the club while young English tyros like Henry Slade, Luke cowan-Dickie and Jack nowell have been backed. Baxter has also stayed loyal to some of those who earned Exeter’s promotion six years ago and are still producing the goods like Gareth Steenson, Phil Dollman and Matt Jess. after the World cup debacle the RFU were always going to look overseas and luckily Eddie Jones was available — I say luckily because he is one of the best and a big enough character to ensure minimum nonsense from the RFU. Equally I have no doubt either Mccall or Baxter could have done the job.