Lawes calls for change to selection policy

ENGLAND centurion Courtney Lawes broke ranks this week arguing that national selection should no longer be restricted to players based at Prem clubs.

The 37-year-old, below, is back in contention to add to his 105 England caps having signed for Sale after two seasons at Brive in the French ProD2.

Some top names including Toulouse flanker Jack Willis remain across the Channel and out of bounds to England head coach Steve Borthwick.

“I can see why they do it because they don’t want all their players playing abroad, but I don’t think that’s necessarily going to be the case anyway,” said Lawes, who last played for England at RWC23.

“It’s important that you have the best players available for selection. If we want the game to develop and more people to watch it, I think it has to develop. I just reckon you make your best players available and by any means necessary. I don’t see why you’d limit yourself.”

In addition to Willis, voted the best player in France in 2024-25 and could yet retain the award after a player-of-the-match performance in June’s Top 14 final, Willis’ brother Tom, Kyle Sinckler, Manu Tuilagi, David Ribbans, Billy Vunipola, Lewis Ludlam and Junior Kpoku also ply their trade in France.

New Zealand, France and Ireland have a similar policy of picking only home-based players, but other leading nations such as South Africa and Australia thrive from selecting numerous us players based abroad.

Exeter boss Rob Baxter, right, insists the RFU’s policy is in the best interests of the English game.

He said: “There’s two arguments here, do you just want to make all the best players available to play for England or do you want to build Premiership Rugby as part of how you build the England team? “If the two go together then you have to have some kind of rules and regulations around where the English players play.

“I always caveat any argument and say selfishly I’m talking about what’s good for Exeter Chiefs as well – because what’s good for Exeter, and every other Premiership side, is knowing there’s a real reason for your best English players to stay in this country.

“If it just comes down to purely finance, then it’s a tough, competitive situation for us, and when people just throw it out there that players should be allowed to play anywhere they like, I think you’ve got to look down at the deeper repercussions sions of what may actually happen in the English game overall. I just don’t think, for the good of the English game, you can do it.”

RFU performance director Conor O’Shea, right, insists the ruling is in the best interests for English rugby as a whole.

He said: “It is something done not just for England, but for English rugby. “As of now, if all the best players were picked by England and went abroad, and we had less of the top players in our league, the unintended consequence towards investment into that from some of our owners… why would you invest in the pathways if the best players are going to be taken away?

“I get it completely, the life experiences are great. But for the English game, it is absolutely the right thing.”

Borthwick opted not to include either Lawes or Joe Marchant, his new Sale team-mate who has spent the past three seasons at Stade Francais, in his first training camp of the season, asking them to prove themselves in the Prem first.

Exiled: (L-R) – Tom Willis, Kyle Sinckler, Manu Tuilagi, David Ribbans, Billy Vunipola, Lewis Ludlam And Junior Kpoku

“I’ve spoken to Steve,” said Lawes, who played 80 minutes in last Sunday’s Prem Cup win over Bath. “It was just what I would expect – he knows I’m coming back and he’s going keep an eye on me, but he wants to see me play in the Prem first and I think that’s a good idea.

“I’ve spent two years away, let’s see how I go in the Prem first, I’m not really thinking about England before I can get up and running for Sale so that’s there’s no point.”

Lawes expects England to put a shaky season behind them as they build towards the World Cup. He added: “It’s obviously been pretty up and down more recently. They had an unbelievable autumn and then struggled in the Six Nations.

“It is hard to know exactly what’s going on in camp, but obviously there’s some issues otherwise they’d probably be playing a bit better than they are. With the squad they’ve got they should be doing quite well.”