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pauldg
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Tue, 25 September 07 12:32 GMT
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>That said, I'm not sure that you're correct in assigning the root cause to Junior rugby. Personally, I feel it is due to the tactics and playbooks adopted in the Premiership, and those tactics are predicated on conservative rugby, needed to avoid the possibility of relegation from the lucrative Premiership into what is effectively the semi-professional game. The Southern Hemisphere still plays running rugby, while the Premiership has adopted Rugby League's sterile one-pass: BANG : recycle approach to life.
AND there's an element of the problem faced by the English Football team - the English Premiership is the place to play if you want money. Hence it's stuffed with the world's best players -and not with English ones.
Great for the clubs, but not so good for the English team as they get squeezed out of top class competition.
And I also suspect there's another reason - I'd guess that pupils of independent schools are still over-represented in rugby in England.
Not that that's a bad thing in itself but it does mean the pool of "hungry" kids who see professional sport being a path to success is proportionately smaller in rugby.
(Think of the myth of the Williams sisters who's father is supposed to have pushed them into Tennis simply for the money - would he have pushed them into women's rugby? If he'd had sons, would they have played rugby?)
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the whistleblower
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Tue, 25 September 07 10:58 GMT
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cjp1, you are correct that we need to find the root causes of England's underperformance on the world state, given its huge playing base. I believe that NZ has fewer club rugby players than club netball players, and both sports number fewer than 100k participants. England has 4-5 times the playing base, and certainly should be able to at least compete.
That said, I'm not sure that you're correct in assigning the root cause to Junior rugby. Personally, I feel it is due to the tactics and playbooks adopted in the Premiership, and those tactics are predicated on conservative rugby, needed to avoid the possibility of relegation from the lucrative Premiership into what is effectively the semi-professional game. The Southern Hemisphere still plays running rugby, while the Premiership has adopted Rugby League's sterile one-pass: BANG : recycle approach to life.
To avoid going off half-cocked, let's see whether England age-group teams are being as comprehensively stuffed as the big boys are. If that's not the case, then perhaps the problem is the inadequacies of pro rugby, rather than the failure of the Junior game to feed adequate players into that pro system. sadly, RFU.com is not a good place to get information on how the U.19 and U.20 teams have fared over the years. The U.19's came 3rd in the 2006 iRB World Championship in Dubai, which is surely comparable to a RWC semi-final loss. However, as far as I know this was the best ever result - so perhaps cjp1 is right. Equally, however, one might point out that most of the U.19 players play for the academies of Premiership clubs - so the rot may be setting in early there.
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Whistleblower |
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the whistleblower
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Tue, 25 September 07 10:35 GMT
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In a different forum, cjp1 posted the following:
the current RWC is exposing some uncomfortable truths for the home nations. We are not as good as NZ, SA, Aus etc in any facet of the game. How is it that England, the largest rugby playing nation on earth in player numbers has never achieved dominance of the world game as its numerical superiority suggest it should? More than twice as many people live within the M25 as live in New Zealand. (And not everyone in NZ plays rugby - half of them seem to be working in pubs in London - their player base is tiny. Australia's is even smaller.)
If we can assume that Englishmen are not genetically weak, small, unco-ordinated and, well just totally unsuited to playing rugby. If we can also assume that rugby does not attract the most sportingly inept society has to offer (after football has taken all the good ones) only logical conclusion that can be reached is that the junior end of the game is failing spectacularly to bring through players with the skills and abilities to compete at the highest level. International level coaches can only work with the players they have. If those players basic skills are suspect (as those of the home nations players so obviously appear to be), well they have a problem. It is the junior end of the game where players are made, where the stars of the future learn the skills they will need.
I contend that all areas of the junior game need carefully looking at. This is where things are going wrong. These things, including tag, need looking at critically and urgently.
By the way the following excuses are complete hokum:
1. South Sea Islanders are just more athletic and better suited to rugby than us. Hmmm, not that many of them in the SA team and they do all right.
2. We would be better if we played the southern hemisphere teams more. We play them loads. Note also that NZ achieved its situation of rugby pre-eminence in almost total geographical isolation. They lost to the Lions in 1906, and not again until the late 60s (the Lions did win a match in '34 I think, Carl Aarvold scored a try). During that period tours by anyone to NZ were few and far between.
3. It's their national sport - Not in Aus, hardly anyone plays. They have no national club competition. the game is tiny there, smaller than hockey in the UK.
We are as good as the standards we set ourselves. To look for excuses is to excuse complacency, mediocrity and failure.
Complacency - mediocrity - failure. Is that what RFU stands for? Is that what English rugby is all about?
If reading this makes you mad - good. If it makes you think - better. Excuses are unacceptable. It's a professional game and there is more to being professional than getting paid.
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Whistleblower |
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