Yesterday, several bookmakers stopped taking bets on Eddie Jones to be the next England coach, as a flurry of money came in. He currently sits as the comfortable favourite, with 1/2 the best odds you can get on him to replace Stuart Lancaster.
Jones himself gave an illuminating interview to ESPN last Thursday about how he thought England needed to change in order to be successful in future. In short, he advocated the central contracting of players. Without them, he argued, England do not have enough control over their players.
“How can you manage your players when they are controlled by other organisations?” Jones asked. “In my opinion, that is the single greatest task ahead of whoever is going to be appointed as the next England coach.”
Jones is comfortably the favourite to take the vacant England head coach role, but his comments will surely have the RFU bigwigs sweating into their blazers. They have a very good relationship with Premiership Rugby – which has not always been the case – and any whiff of central contracts will destroy that harmony.
Conversely, Jones is not a man renowned for sticking around if he cannot get his own way. He has proven that he can get results, but at what cost?
New Zealand, naturally, are the best example of how central contracting can be benficial. As Will Greenwood pointed out recently in his excellent column about the Sam Burgess saga, if Steve Hansen wants to see Beauden Barrett play at 15 because he thinks he will use him there in the World Cup, the Hurricanes will play him at 15.
The indecision over Burgess’s position, of course, summed up the problem with the current environment in England. Bath saw him as a flanker, England wanted him to play centre; in the end, both sides and the player suffered. It is not something that would happen in New Zealand, or, indeed, Ireland or Wales for that matter.
The opening weekend of the European Champions Cup, and to a lesser extent the first few weekends of the Premiership, have proved that there is plenty of talent amongst England’s ranks. Itoje, Daly, Wade, Yarde, Slade, Simpson, Fraser – to name but a few – have all been in fine form and could have big futures.
Add those names to a core of players – Marler, Launchbury, Vunipola, Youngs, Ford, Watson, Brown – that are more experienced but are young enough to be around in 2019, and the future starts to look rosy again.
But the real question is, how do England get the most out of all of these names? Yes, they regularly thrive in domestic colours, but how often have brilliant club players failed to consistently make their mark on the international scene in the past few years?
On a grander scale, it comes down to what is the priority. England is somewhat unique in that it has a genuinely thriving, partisan club game. Certainly, the clubs wield a lot of power, but were that power to be taken away under central contracting, the domestic game would undoubtedly be diluted.
France is the only other country that has a club game with a similar level of support and influence, and it is not a coincidence that these are the two nations that wildly underachieved at the World Cup.
Many would argue that it is a price worth paying, because the international game should take precedent – but then you would have plenty of local supporters who pay good money to see their club play every week who would argue the opposite. And quite right too – the club game is too important to too many to be merely thrown under the bus.
So, herein lies the unanswerable question: how does England balance the need to encourage a thriving club game, with an international side that needs greater control over its players if it is to keep up with the likes of New Zealand, Australia and Argentina – all of whom have it?
Eddie Jones has an opinion, but it only really answers one half of that question. Should he be the man to replace Lancaster, there will be several club owners and coaches squirming in their seats.
By Jamie Hosie
Follow Jamie on Twitter: @jhosie43
Difficult with the way the season is arranged, but a Super Rugby-type model could be adopted (though this largely failed in Wales and Ireland) where the players play for their club in the premiership, but the European Cup is contested by RFU-controlled representative teams (and the clubs contributing players duly compensated).
This would be most practical if there were a definite divide between the competitions, rather than the interweaving that goes on now.
Just don’t end up deciding that these teams should play all the time and devalue the premiership.
I think it has largely failed in Wales (not so much Ireland), because the regions have been imposed on top of the club game and play all year round.
If the NH went to a SH season structure and had a Super European Competition (great name, if they use it I’m claiming royalties) in Feb-Jun and then Internationals and clubs running concurrently, it would be more successful.
In this model, the RFU should franchise entrance to any super tournament to existing clubs (as Scotland did with Glasgow and Edinburgh), rather than setting up their own super clubs (as Wales have done, creating a Club vs Super-Club feud). Ireland is slightly different because they historically have 4 geographic regions that people buy in to.
I agree completely with your first two paragraphs, not so much with the third.
This is why I think it would be very important that the teams are regions, rather than super-clubs. That’s a large part of the problem in Wales – if players can carry on playing for their clubs for 60+% of the season I don’t think there’d be much region-club rivalry.
This is what people thought was going to happen when the regions were introduced and there was quite a lot of excitement about watching the best of [insert geographic region] go on to play against the big French clubs, but then we ended up with ‘super’ (I use the word for want of a better one) clubs which weren’t really representative, have had to try to build up a new supporter base and have alienated fans from some traditional clubs (Pontypridd and Ebbw Vale leap to mind).
The main reason I thought the RFU should control the regions/superclubs/whatevers was control: they could dictate how they’d play and, to an extent, who plays for them. I also think that franchised clubs could cause a bit of animosity from non-franchised clubs.
Leap between Premshp & Int’al rugby is too gr&, but clubs currently too strong.
The game revolves around them & they would likely oppose regional imposition from RFU.
RFU need to get their thinking caps on negotiate a way to do this however & without threatening clubs’ foundations. Some joint venture needs hammering out tho, otherwise status quo for the future… which won’t work either as past proves.
First things first, let’s get rid of the LV Cup. Less games straight away for everyone to organise around.
On central contracts, it’ll never happen. There is no way the clubs will get on board with that, they are just too powerful. I can’t see what the RFU can possibly offer them to agree? It would have to be a massive financial package, and even then I’m sure the likes of Bruce Craig will want to be stubborn against losing any of his power in the English game.
I would love to see it happen but I just don’t think it will. I’d love to see Eddie Jones come in; but the more I think about it the more I just don’t think it’ll work. We’ll have a year or so of arguments and then he’ll likely walk and we’d have to start again.
The one thing the LV cup is good for is developing young players. do away with that and it would be much harder for talented young players to break into their first teams as they wouldn’t be able to showcase their talents in a micky mouse competition.
You could change the LV cup to say only players with less than x caps for their club are eligable
Problem is that is still takes up weekends for first team games even if few play. Without it the problem of playing these European games that have been missed will be solved.
In an ideal world, the England internationals would play less Prem games under central contracts so those that would have played in the LV would then get game time at Prem level instead.
There is no LV cup this year because of the Rugby World Cup.
If there were LV cup weekends, I’m sure Bath would honour both fixtures on the same weekend (and send an A team to the LV game) or give a walkover in the LV. However, the issue is that LV games are usually during the International period.
Ah didn’t know that fair play. Even so, it just congests the season unnecessarily. Young players will get more exposure in the Prem if the internationals are playing there less so it sorts that issue out.
Classic case of club v country.
Would central contracts really affect that many players? 3 at Glos probably and the club would be able to go out and get replacements as they wouldn’t be footing the wage bill. So probably a bonus for the club. The problem would come when the RFU say when and where a player can play.
I wonder how much money the RFU currently puts into AP clubs. Does anyone know? Money will be at the root of it with power and ego’s vying for second place!
A Welsh fan – who cares about England rugby, strange as that may seem – says, PLEASE do not even consider appointing Eddie Jones – a disaster in the making. Don’t put the great play of the Jap XV down to him – they did it almost in spite of him. Just before the World Cup, he announced he’d be leaving them; great team-building! What England needs now is competent preparation for the future, not a ‘star’ who will dump them after a couple of fraught years!
I really agree with this. Eddie is not a guy with any love for English rugby. And I don’t want four years of doing whatever it takes to do well at the next world cup and then being dumped straight after, which is what happened post 2003 and what I think we’ll get from Eddie.
Think we need someone who looks beyond the next world cup.
I don’t see the problem with Jones. Yes, he is a mercenary, but as long as he does his best for us for 4 years, I would be happy. He is a proven strategist, and tends to get the best out of his players. Given the dearth of other options at the moment, we could do far worse. Might give Mallinder, Baxter, etc 4 years to develop their coaching resumes although I would dearly love some of our best coaches to go abroad and get a wider rugby experience. After all it’s what most SH coaches do.
England obviously need a character, and a proven winner, like Eddie Jones. Things have to change after that pathetic attempt of a Rugby World Cup campaign. I do however disagree with idea of moving towards a fully centrally contracted structure. England should avoid this as it will destroy the competitive nature of England’s huge available player pool (it does already to a certain degree). Fra/Eng have to come up with a different structure to other countries because their situation, with more than one pro league and many more teams, is entirely different to other “Tier 1” (anyone else hate this term?) teams.
Next coach should however:
– GET SELECTION RIGHT
– Pick from best available players including those based abroad (by simply including invoking the exceptional circumstance clause. This will still protect the Premiership).
– GET SELECTION RIGHT
– Pick the team and then the captain.
– Pick a genuine open-side flanker.
– Never ever pick a 12 who is only a defender. Twelve has become a position of critical importance and with England having superb talent out wide they need to be brought into the game more (but this does not mean Billy you know who should ever be picked again..)
– Not employ a “rugby league” coach as an assistant unless his name is Shaun Edwards. Next coach needs to pick the right men around him and they should all be proven rugby union winners as coaches.
– Ignore the Rugby World Cup and stop talking about it. Try and win a 6N Grand Slam instead and make Twickenham a fortress again. Win the next game…
– Finally GET SELECTION RIGHT.
It’s easy to argue this and that about central contracts and deep rooted causes for England’s failure at the Rugby World Cup but if Lancaster had picked Steffon Armitage and GOT SELECTION RIGHT he would still be in a job. Why on earth did he pick those four centres? Lancaster also must shoulder the responsibility of Sam Burgess entirely and picking him as a 12 when he had not performed well enough for Bath there to merit selection. The RFU certainly need a strong personality that will ruffle a few feathers because whatever die hard club rugby fans believe success at international level is what really matters and the RFU need to be more selfish when it comes to the interests of the clubs and Aviva Premiership, who have entirely separate (commercial) aims.. Louis Picamoles moving to the AP is a complete game changer in this regard.
Dave
I agree with everything you say.He is everything Stu isn’t which is why he is far and away the best candidate.
Tbh, I think we’re at a point where the club/ country arrangement needs looking at. It’s not working well for either party. The clubs continue to underperform in Europe and England continue to lag internationally.
Not sure about central contracts, but the RFU does have a big bargaining chip if they want shake things up, and that is ring fencing the premiership, perhaps in return for more control of EPS players (i.e. when and where to play them).
Have just heard that in addition to Jones coming on board that Jake White is being eyed up for a Director of rugby role. This seems strange. Assuming it’s a non-coaching role, does White have the track record for administration. Surely this would be tailor made for SCW and would go some way to soothing fears over the appointment of a foreign head coach. But if we were to go for the double, I’d go for someone like Graham Henry. Sure he said no to a coaching role, but a Board position, covering elite development – surely few would be better qualified.
I’m not adverse to having someone who will open up the club and country topic either. There’s the old adage of breaking eggs and making omelettes, and we can’t shy away from these topics because they are difficult or someone might get a bit upset.
The huge boom in the game that currently isn’t happening because of the non-performance of the national team also shows this is the right time to have the discussion. There are no 10,000s of additional people flocking through the gates to see their RWC heroes, because there are no RWC heroes. The once in a generation opportunity has been wasted, therefore must be a more mutually beneficial arrangement than the current one.
The RFUs big bargaining chips are keeping a home only based policy and having deep pockets. So there is both carrot and stick. Personally I’d just relax the policy slightly to be a home or returning based policy to always leave the door ajar for those such as Armitage so they can play on the understanding it’s conditional on coming home when their contract is up, but it should certainly be used as a lever in negotiation with the clubs.
We need a proper rugby intellect that can define a way for us to play and coach and select to that game plan. He fits the bill perfectly. Also a huge plus for me is the existing relationship with Borthwick, again we need a coach that demands perfection and has an eye for the detail (non an attribute I saw in the gang of 4).
I’m not sure I like the idea of another ‘big personality/ego’ overseeing the whole thing as a DoR, unless this is something Jones has specifically asked for (i.e. get me someone to take care of all the off field shit, so I can focus on rugby issues only)
I think defining a way to play is crucial. We seem oscillate between being adventurous when there’s nothing to lose (eg. against France in 6N) and sticking the ball up the jumper when there’s something on the line (RWC)
Obviously there’s nothing wrong with tailoring your tactics to the situation, but they should still be tailored within the framework of the style you want to play.
I thought Argentina in particular, showed the way forward for England. A blend of fast, dangerous outside backs, a clever fly half not afraid to try things and some big, nasty forwards who attack the breakdown as a unit.
The way each game was played always seemed to depend upon the attributes of the players selected, which makes you wonder if there was a game plan at all.
For all the talk of culture and identity, I defy anyone to actually identify and describe “what is English rugby?” …. OK Enoch may have a clear idea, but that’s about it.
What is English rugby without a set piece? 8th best in the world unfortunately.
Sounds increasingly like Jones is going to be announced. A new director of rugby role being created too – ideal for SCW. Think it is essential Jones hire an experienced current premiership operator as his assistant coach, who is familiar with the players in England. Also sets this person to take on the role after Jones.
Hope Borthwick comes into coach the forwards, Gustard to coach defence.
Hopefully after this appointment Lancaster’s faults (poor selection, crucial games missed) will be overshadowed by his greatest success – finding and blooding a new generation of players for the next 2 or 3 world cups.
I’d be very suprised if Jones agreed to work with SWC
Their quite good pals now and Jones even half joked about working under SCW.
Oh I’m sure but it’s one thing joking around in the media and another Jones working underneath SCW!
Well, the ? needs to asked; ‘do England want to have a shot esp @ the nxt WC or not?
If affirmative, then how do they go about it?
By ‘England’ I mean the RFU I suppose, as the clubs are likely, as a matter of self interest, to be less keen as to whether the national team succeed or not.
I mean ‘loaning’ their employees out to be potentially crocked by another ‘temporary employer’ is unappealing to them.
Well, this may be an impossible ?, not so much as to answer, but to implement a solution for.
There needs to be 1 governing body which ideally overseas all matters rugby. This includes the Int’al set up, clubs, to grassroots rugger, coaching & other academies & player assns.
The only way for this to happen is for the RFU & the clubs to somehow engineer a ‘merger’. This is likely to be neigh on impossible of course, but the alt si more or less more of the same.
Jones right in that the coach needs to control the players. This would also include the instigation of more uniform playing styles throughout for cohesion of the game at large. So the ‘new’ RFU would have to embrace a new philosophy by doing this. Perhaps by also inserting a new layer of game beneath Int’al, but above club level to make the leap to national level shorter?
A new coach could then upskill & widen the mind sets of the game & players on a higher overall plane… which is what Eddie is probably hinting at?