England rugby still has a long way to go
The failure of any of the Premiership teams to make it to the semifinals of the European Champions Cup is a stark reminder that England rugby still has a long way to go before it’s back to pre-pandemic levels. As good as the Premiership professes to be, it is results in competitions involving other countries’ top leagues that define the quality of our teams.
Leicester, who are currently top of our Premiership and had not lost at home all season, hosted Leinster in their quarter-final but went down 14-23 having been totally outplayed in the first half. What I can’t believe is that some have tried to blame the fact that Leinster have central contracts and Leicester don’t as a reason for the loss claiming the result was due to the number of minutes played in the previous games by ‘star’ players such as Ellis Genge as opposed to the rested Leinster players. These voices also add that it will get worse because of the drop in the salary cap.
The fact is that Leinster have far more ‘star’ players than Leicester and it was the skill they showed in the first half getting a 20-point lead that made the difference. If it was to do with game time and fatigue, surely Leicester would not have won the second half 14-3?
It is also a fact that all Premiership players are restricted in the number of games they can play in a season for club and country. Players are limited to 30 lots (games) of 80 minutes or 35 involvements in a match-day squad, whichever comes sooner. This was reduced from the previous level of 32 games to aid player welfare.
However, whether because of the pandemic or the resulting ringfence, the actual standard of play has dropped in the Premiership with many one-sided games taking place up and down the Premiership showing a lack of consistency by virtually all teams. This does not
“As good as the Premiership professes to be, results define the quality of teams”
bode well for the national team on this summer’s tour, even though Australia are not in the best of form and England head coach Eddie Jones, below, has a formidable record against his home country.
England are about to undertake probably the most important tour they have played in the last three years because it is a part of the preparation for the 2023 World Cup. As Jones’ final chance to try some new combinations and players before the World Cup kicks off, he needs the Premiership playing at its best. After the poor results in the last two Six Nations, Jones will need to settle his side going into the next and last tour, and Six Nations before France ‘23 with the time for experiments over.
Talking of experiments, the call for a Nations Championship seems to be gathering pace with an outline of the details of the potential competition already in the public domain. The competition would encompass 24 teams competing in two leagues, a first and second division, with each team from each hemisphere playing one game against all the other hemisphere teams in its league, a total of six games each. Surprisingly, it says there will be promotion and relegation but only after a play-off match between the bottom of division 1 and the top of division 2.
The Nations Championship would be played
two years so as not to interfere with either the Lions tour or RWC, with the champion decided by a game between the two top nations in the top league. It’s said that there has already been an agreement by the second division sides with only the first division sides left to agree. It’s no wonder the second division sides agreed, even if it threatens to reduce their number of games against the top tier nations as they are few and far between. However, with the chance of ever being included in the Six Nations or Rugby Championship virtually negligible, the offer of potential promotion to the top league of the Nations Championship could open that door.
What seems an insurmountable problem to me is what if the bottom team is from the south and the top of division two is from the north or vice versa?
If the division two team won the play-off it could unbalance the whole competition with seven teams from one hemisphere and then what if the same happened again? Add in the fact that it would undermine the integrity of the regular competitions (Six Nations and The Rugby Championship), which are supposed to have the best teams competing in them.
If a team were competing in the first division of the Nations Chamevery pionship but not in the established annual competitions, there would naturally be pressure to replace the country relegated. In turn, that could cause massive complications in terms of finance, contracts (TV etc) and potentially participation for the affected country and the competition itself. It would also beg the question; why have a World Cup as it’s likely the Nations Champion would be odds on to win the World Cup just a season after being crowned.
All in all, as far as the potential division 1 countries are concerned, only a fool would undermine the status quo of the current competitions and the money they make for the promise of a potential windfall that may never happen.