THE most pleasurable of life’s recent experiences was to chat with a large number of England players from all eras in furtherance of a work on their joy and passion in wearing the white jersey. It was therefore instructive and rather moving to be contacted on Friday afternoon by one of the most clipped and cautious of the grand old guys, expressing a sense of loss after the naming of the bizarre and incredibly disappointing squad for the World Cup.
He felt the selection of Sam Burgess showed the jersey was somehow not as treasured as it used to be. He is wrong but to give one to Burgess without any international form to his credit is pushing it. It was bordering on an insult to Luther Burrell, and an insult to history. I would call it dishonest were it not for the honesty of the men who made the decision.
Since the last World Cup, it has been a confusing, straw-clutching ride. Examples? When Billy Twelvetrees first arrived in the set-up I asked one of the leading England coaches what the player could offer. “Billy has everything,” said my informant, happily speaking on the record. He never came close to making the World Cup in the end. Look through the squad and almost every player has been lauded, dropped, restored, and so on. Feather duster, rooster, feather duster. The same with tactics.
I said last week — and it has been confirmed by the squad announcement — that the England team at all points, and especially up front, appears to be chosen on athleticism, statistics and being in the right place at the right time, and saying the right things at the right time.
All the great teams and every World Cup winner has been a beast, players who would go out and take it right up the opposition’s noses. The England of today is nice. Too nice.
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Anybody spotting a coherent line in the operation is fooling themselves. The morass of selection has turned up an England side who have no confidence at set-pieces, let alone one that has any edge at the breakdown, any unity of purpose and philosophy in midfield. It is the least thrilling England side I have ever seen. No pressure, George Ford.
The selection of Burgess is a tribute to his aura, passion and footballing excellence as a rugby league player. All those criteria are wrong, by the way. Aura and presence now seem to be technical qualities, if you go on the number of times they have been mentioned regarding Burgess. If aura alone is enough, choose Muhammad Ali.
By the time he had played his seventh game, Burgess was still making a contribution inferior to that Bath could have derived from their under-20 centres. Lancaster was quoted as saying that it was “very unlikely” that Burgess would be ready for the 2015 World Cup
This was an opinion which drew almost unanimous agreement, which was confirmed when Burgess was chosen for the England A team earlier this year and when the experiment of playing him in the centre was ended by Mike Ford, the Bath head coach. I thought then and now that if as experienced a trans-code convert as Ford had given up and switched Burgess to flanker, then who on God’s earth had any chance?
Then, something bizarre happened. A few months ago those close to the England squad and those in it kept telling me Burgess’ star was not only rising but that he was bound to be in. I found this baffling and offensive. I found that sense of wrong trebling and quadrupling after the England-France game at Twickenham. We all were desperate for him to do something and he made a rather ungainly but fierce hit in the early stages, which did not even change the course of the French move, let alone the match, but we loved it and the crowd roared. Apart from that, the effect he had on the game was negligible.
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The man who missed out is Luther Burrell, for whom Lancaster is reported to have shed tears. Nobody ever accused Lancaster of not being a human being. But compare the treatment of the two B-men. Burgess has had special treatment, special encouragement, over-praise; analysis of his game has been almost suspended and on the goodwill of the coaching panel he has been carried as if on a sedan chair towards the World Cup.
It is only two or three years since Burrell, whose England dream has always charged him and possibly saved him from severe unhappiness, was plodding around on muddy Yorkshire fields desperately trying to revive a professional career.
He did so because Northampton, as a spotter and nurturing force of young talent so far ahead of the England group, saved him. Jim Mallinder, Dorian West and Alex King gave him the confidence to make the England squad and to play throughout the past two RBS Six Nations championships in what seems like hundreds of combinations
The patience, the understanding and the right to have an equal crack as that afforded to Burgess have been taken away. How can his confidence survive intact after last week when, according to reports, he had to play in a one-off match to try to prove his place, and then had to pack his bags and drive out of Pennyhill Park?
If Burgess has found something on a training paddock which he has not shown in public, we may be in for a treat. Far more likely in an England squad short of X factor, magic and game-changers, he will take part towards the end of games already won or lost.
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By all accounts, Burgess is as decent a man as Lancaster, and one of the finest rugby league players of all time. But while apologising for the military reference, the announcement made last Thursday in Bagshot, Surrey — and if you think the rest of the squad are unanimously behind the selection, then think again — constituted a day that will live in infamy