England Rugby selection rules and regs

[Puja]

So then it’s just your best players that you don’t have available for training/non-test windows?

Players would ideally negotiate releases into their contracts - the big issue would be the summer tours which clash with the Top 14 knockouts, however playing in those big knockout games may be better experience for our top players in any case?

South Africa seem to manage it well and it seems to me that players make strategic career decisions in concert with Rassie - there is a template there.

Ideally, yes. But what about players who go in their 20s, develop when abroad, and then don't have those release clauses already in place? Or players not confident enough about their job security to want to risk a contract for the sake of a training camp? Plus I value all England games - I don't care if players get good experience playing knock-out games for a foreign club side if it means they miss England matches.

South Africa have the advantage of an incredible player-base - 4.5 million Afrikaans for whom rugby is inherently and indisputably their number one sport, bolstered by another 55 million Black African and Coloured South Africans (to use the official ANC census category names) who the SARU are doing an increasingly better and better job in talent-identification and development. They will literally play two completely different XVs in the same Rugby Championship and win both games.

On the flip side, New Zealand and Ireland seem to manage it well by just picking from within their own domestic environment and using the national shirt to keep players home and their competitions strong, even when money would suggest going elsewhere?

Puja

[Oakboy]

So then it’s just your best players that you don’t have available for training/non-test windows?

Players would ideally negotiate releases into their contracts - the big issue would be the summer tours which clash with the Top 14 knockouts, however playing in those big knockout games may be better experience for our top players in any case?

South Africa seem to manage it well and it seems to me that players make strategic career decisions in concert with Rassie - there is a template there.

Ideally, yes. But what about players who go in their 20s, develop when abroad, and then don't have those release clauses already in place? Or players not confident enough about their job security to want to risk a contract for the sake of a training camp? Plus I value all England games - I don't care if players get good experience playing knock-out games for a foreign club side if it means they miss England matches.

South Africa have the advantage of an incredible player-base - 4.5 million Afrikaans for whom rugby is inherently and indisputably their number one sport, bolstered by another 55 million Black African and Coloured South Africans (to use the official ANC census category names) who the SARU are doing an increasingly better and better job in talent-identification and development. They will literally play two completely different XVs in the same Rugby Championship and win both games.

On the flip side, New Zealand and Ireland seem to manage it well by just picking from within their own domestic environment and using the national shirt to keep players home and their competitions strong, even when money would suggest going elsewhere?

Puja

SA, NZ and Ireland - three teams better than us overall in the last few years. Then there is France whose domestic game is rich enough to buy players' loyalty. I suppose if we get a couple of GSs and win the RWC, all is well with our system and any need to learn from the others (in any direction) counts for little. Also, losing 3 clubs to bankruptcy leaves a scar that won't heal in our domestic set-up.

I simply want our best XV (or 23) players available but accept that it is a wild dream as things stand.

[Which Tyler]

How many NZ and Ire players get selected whilst playing overseas?

[Oakboy]

How many NZ and Ire players get selected whilst playing overseas?

Exactly - hence my 'in any direction' rider.

[Morton]

I get that, and I basically agree, but you’ve just listed a different complication to your plan rather than a reason that it’s actually not an issue.

Once Itoje, Freeman and… I dunno… Pollock decide they’re the chosen ones off to France to indulge in cake eating/ownership where are we left? Still without the ability to pick some good English players and also less access to ones we previously had.

I don’t understand what beating a ropey Australia side really has to do with anything. Is them missing Skelton somehow an argument for this plan?

To my mind Itoje is the only player in the squad who could be very sure of being picked if he went to France. And would probably lose the captaincy. Maybe Genge. All the others would be playing Russian roulette with their chances. With only three places up for grabs surely the Willis brothers would be two leaving one place. Freeman wouldn't risk it with so many wingers about. Pollock definitely not.

The problem with making exceptions is that everyone thinks they're exceptional. At the moment, we've set the choice in front of our top players as "have big overseas money, but no England, at all, for any reason". If we change it to "have big overseas money and maybe England," then more than 3 people will back themselves to make it into that list of 3, and then it'll be, "Ugh, why are we limiting ourselves and weakening the England team by restricting it to just 3; why can't we pick more!?!"

There's definitely an argument to be made that us failing to hold the line over exceptional circumstances after the collapse of the three clubs is why there are good players in France right now. Would JWillis have gone to Toulouse in the first place if he'd been told that it would instantly cost him his RWC place? Probably not*. But because he was given the chance to have his cake and eat it too, he went for that and, because the rule had been weakened once, he re-signed with the openly expressed hope that he would be able to be an exception again in the future.

Puja


*I am aware that it would've been exceedingly unfair to the player to do that, given the situation in which Wasps' demise had left him, and that there were other considerations at the time. This is more about the eligibility rules.

[francoisfou]

There are evidently differences between “The Prem”(!) and the Top14, the principle one being the number of matches that players have the opportunities to shine week in, week out. Only 18 matches per season in England and 26 here in France, and if players perform with regularity, like Jack Willis does here in Toulouse and his brother did with UBB a season or so and Dave Ribbans, who’s revered in Toulon, then supporters (like me) are going to be clamouring that they should be considered for selection at Test level. However, Zach Mercer was turning it on for Montpellier a couple of seasons ago getting the Top14 player of the season award and was tempted back to England to replicate his form, but unfortunately he chose the wrong club. If he’d’ve gone to Sarries, Northampton or Tigers or wherever, his Test career may have taken off, but we’ll never know and sadly that ship has long sailed.
These players are making serious career decisions and I feel rather saddened that the RFU didn’t choose to bend the regs a little to permit the selection of two or three players, allowing them to negotiate their availability for England training and Tests.
These are opportunities missed that will cost England the chance of winning the World Cup again.

[Scrumhead]

.
These are opportunities missed that will cost England the chance of winning the World Cup again.

That’s a very definitive statement that would be impossible to prove.

Of the players not currently available to England, Tom Willis is the only one I am truly gutted to lose. He would be in my starting XV.

As much as I rate Jack, I don’t rate him any higher than Tom Curry and not much higher than Underhill. If he were available, he’d make my squad ahead of Pepper or Ben Curry but I wouldn’t be prepared to rip up our system and risk the future of the Premiership for him.

Marchant would also be in my starting XV, but I hope/maybe even expect to see him back in England next season.

[fivepointer]

Its always disappointing to lose good players to the French Top14 but really if we value having a competitive and successful Prem, then its surely obvious that we have to retain as many of our top players as we possibly can.
That may hurt the national side in limited circumstances, but the downside of having no control on our players and only having them released during international windows would be considerable.
Right now the RFU's position is perfectly sensible to my mind.