Hartpury College a breeding ground for top talent

England and Wales are both benefiting from its pioneering set-up, writes Daniel Schofield

The most extraordinary talent factory in British rugby is not a professional academy but a former agricultural college where the whiff of manure still hangs in the air. Hartpury College, based outside Gloucester, has produced more than 20 internationals and dozens of professionals.

Their unique model could yet prove to be the panacea for a couple of the Rugby Football Union’s burning problems, but conversely Hartpury contribute as many players to Wales as they do to England. Should teenage sensation Louis Rees-zammit make his debut this weekend against England, there will be two Hartpury graduates on each side at Twickenham – he and Ross Moriarty opposite Jonny May and Ellis Genge. Other alumni include England scrum-half Dan Robson and Italy trio Jake Polledri, Callum Braley and Seb Negri.

“Everyone assumes there’s some giant secret at Hartpury, when it is just down to hard work,” John Barnes, the director of rugby, says. “Maybe it is the British mentality that they must be doing something dodgy to be so successful.”

At under-18 level, about nine of Hartpury’s first XV are Welsh, including two internationals. This does not sit easily 25 miles across the border, where there are mutterings of poaching. The reality is somewhat different.

For example, Rees-zammit was on the books at Cardiff Blues but applied to Hartpury on his own volition aged 16. “I did not know Lou until he came here for his assessment day,” Wayne Thompson, the junior academy manager, says. “We don’t actively recruit players at that level, they come to us. I don’t believe the Welsh regions were too bothered by him coming at the time.” That outlook definitely changed when he signed for Gloucester and started tearing up the Premiership.

In part because of Reeszammit’s success, Hartpury last week hosted more than 300 players at an assessment day, a good proportion of whom were Welsh. Traditionally, the Welsh regions have reacted to the prospect with a mixture of horror and hostility. That attitude is radically shifting. Cardiff Blues are now sending contracted academy players to Hartpury. “Rather than shutting those barriers off, we need to be better at understanding the reasons why they are leaving,” Gruff Rees, the Blues academy manager, says. “We are working as a partnership. It is a big wide world now and we have to realise that.”

What makes Hartpury unique is that they offer three strands to the rugby development programme: the under-18 team compete in the Achieving Academic and Sporting Excellence league, the university team compete in the British Universities and Colleges Sport league, and finally the men’s team play in the Championship. “At every stage, you are being placed in a shop window,” Barnes says.

Hartpury share a lot of facilities with Gloucester, who are the tenants in the relationship, and Barnes is keen to emphasise their independence. Yet the biggest selling point, particularly for parents, is the guarantee of further learning alongside their rugby. “Education will always supersede the rugby,” Barnes says.

The great advantage of Hartpury’s system is that it affords the opportunity for shooting stars to be fast-tracked, as well as for late-developers to get a platform. “We can give players coming here at 16 a long-term plan for their development,” Thompson says. “Whereas if you are at a Premiership club and you don’t get a contract at 18, then what do you do? Here you can stay on at university, play a good standard of rugby in the BUCS and remain in a planned pathway. It is a five to six-year pathway, rather than a two-year pathway elsewhere.”

In the Championship, Hartpury operate a part-time model, training three days a week at 7am. Their wage structure ranges from £5,000 to £15,000 a year, while the students are supplemented by a few wise old heads such as Akapusi Qera, Luke Eves and Dan Murphy. “We are quite open that we only want you for a year, it’s not great money but we will get you a job coaching at a local club and we will improve you as a player,” Barnes says. Instead, most of their income is invested into their facilities and coaching. Hartpury have a number of former professionals coaching at every level of their pathway, including former England No8 James Forrester, who heads up their BUCS second XV.

Hartpury’s model seems to be replicated by Exeter Chiefs, who have forged a strong relationship with both Exeter University and

Exeter College. Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, visited the club before their match against Coventry, and perhaps coincidentally now seems to be pursuing a part-time model for the Championship. “As a model for the RFU, it does sit quite well,” Barnes says.

That is easy to say for a club with no ambitions of reaching the Premiership. Instead their goal is simply to develop as many players as they can. Barnes says: “Our main philosophy is that yes, we want to win things, but the main thing we want is to make every player better, whether they go on to play for Wales or England or just go back to their local club.”