I am surprised by Colin Boag's response to my call for a potential ‘other source of players' for England's internationals. Although I appreciate Colin's love of the Premiership he surely cannot truly believe the RFU are well served by the clubs' efforts to provide players for the international squads?
First, the Premiership and its members are businesses which work hard to maintain an elite position within the club game and retain its spot at the top of the league structure, with little or no consideration for the national team or other clubs.
Like all businesses it has selfinterest at the heart of everything – as each club does – otherwise why would it require the RFU to pay them to field a certain number of EQP in every match squad?
If the many payments from the RFU to the Premiership were to stop, there can be no doubt that many clubs would be forced into liquidation with players losing their livelihoods.
Look at the way the clubs develop young players through an academy system. They use a scattergun approach, signing as many school players as possible only to dispose of the vast majority before offering contracts. This certainly doesn't seem like a good way to find talent, particularly late developers.
As for his comment that the Union couldn't pay the ‘going rate' if they considered central contracts, he has missed a simple financial point.
If central contracts had been put in place when the game turned pro, there would not have been a need for a professional game agreement, as the top players would have been employed by the RFU thus saving them a fortune which could be invested in grass roots.
Unfortunately, the RFU allowed a club director to negotiate on their behalf and missed the chance to contract the players and control that part of the game.
Add to that, the fact that the Union already pay players a proportionately bigger salary than the Premiership and for around a third of the number of matches.
The Premiership average salary is around £120k a year while the RFU pay a match fee – currently reduced from £23k to £17,250 per game which will, I am sure rise again once things get back to normal – for around ten matches or fewer a season except in RWC years.
Current central contracted players and international players from various countries have no problem finding teams willing to employ them, including the Premiership.
It is possible that central contracts here would reduce wage costs for the Premiership with the RFU taking a bigger share of the costs.
However, Colin is right when he highlights Eddie Jones' problem of choosing players from the Premiership given there are only about 200 EQP per round of Premiership matches despite having the largest playing population in the world.
The reason is the players are playing in their usual environment with the same group of teammates, including some of the best players from around the world, making it difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff.
As Stuart Barnes pointed out in his article about Sam Simmonds' record-breaking efforts for Exeter, this may give a false impression of how good or bad a player really is, or if they would fit into Eddie Jones' plan for the England team.
Great club sides are not necessarily stuffed with large numbers of world-beating players.
Bath were the team of the 80s and early 90s, winning titles by the bucket load and, yes, they had some remarkable players – Jerry Guscott, Stuart Barnes, Gareth Chilcott, Nigel Redman, Graham Dawe, the list goes on – but when that team with a single player from Bristol, Jon Webb, was entered into the Divisional Championship as the South West team playing against combination teams made from many clubs from each region, the South West came last, losing every game.
Put simply, the step up to a representative level was a step above the usual club game and to a certain extent sorted those who were capable of playing at a higher level from those those who were not.
However, as much as it could help solve selection problems, we are highly unlikely to ever return to a four-tier representative system, club, county, region (divisional or provincial), international like New Zealand and the other countries that have central contracts in the near or distant future.
This is simply because the Premiership own the development pathway for all players from around the age of 15 and the only professional game that all young players aspire to play in.
Meanwhile, we have World Rugby telling everyone how well the game is doing, despite all that is happening due to the pandemic.
They say we have seen a massive rise in popularity in rugby around the world, particularly in the women's game. Except we haven't. Much of the ‘huge increase' is down to including in the statistics children who may only have tried tag rugby at school.
Yes, there is an increase in female numbers but still not enough to combat the rapid decline in the men's game in the foundation unions.
The increase in the women's game has sparked one interesting review, a survey on injuries with World Rugby seeking 10,000 female players (more than the 8,105 registered in England) to answer questions on injuries, including concussion, which they may have received playing the game.
As all previous surveys were solely on men's injuries, this is a massive step forward for the women's game. It may change the way the game is played and officiated and improve safety.
JEFF PROBYN
