A SOMBRE England party left here for home yesterday. By the time they reassemble, no more than a year will remain before their defence of the World Cup and the past three weeks in Australia have not suggested that England are any nearer to a side that can make a successful defence.
Two defeats, by 31 points in Sydney and 25 points in Melbourne, have left the management clutching at the straws of improvement by a handful of individuals. Andy Robinson, the head coach who has presided over five defeats in the past four months, bemoaned — not for the first time — the domestic structure and he is right to do so, but he has not made optimum use of the talent available to him.
Though Robinson did not spell it out so bluntly, the Guinness Premiership gives him journeymen players. That message has been evident over the past two years in which England have declined relative not only to the southern hemisphere but also to France and the other home unions, too.
Consider what happened over the weekend in Canada with the Churchill Cup and the under-21 tournament in France, where England’s best could not pick up the pace.
There are individuals who may become world class — Mathew Tait is one, Magnus Lund may be another, while of the under-21 side, Anthony Allen and Jordan Crane may have made significant strides by 2011. But at this moment, England boast no contenders for a world XV while Australia, even in the throes of significant change, have in Chris Latham, Stephen Larkham, Stirling Mortlock, Lote Tuqiri and George Smith at least five.
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“I have cut my nose off to spite my face,” Robinson said after Saturday’s 43-18 defeat. “I could have said, ‘sod it, we will bring these players’ (such as Charlie Hodgson or Martin Corry), but I didn’t think it was right, because of the season they have had and the programme over the next year.
“When I first got involved, I thought the system was going to change, but it hasn’t. There has to be a shake-up of the system we have for long-term development. This is not about the World Cup but the overall vision for English rugby, which is where the (new post of) elite director comes in. He needs a free hand to develop that vision.”
The other home unions, Robinson said, had benefited by changing their domestic structure, to the extent that Scotland, Ireland and Wales will return from their summer tours more uplifted than England. He still believes that knitting together the best of those players resting at home with the best from this tour will produce a XV capable of meeting Australia and New Zealand on an equal footing, as they did at Twickenham last autumn, but he now has, at most, only nine games in which to do so.
Robinson needs to have identified his best World Cup XV by midway through the 2007 Six Nations Championship, so he can exercise it in South Africa next summer and the three warm-up games that precede the World Cup in France. It is, though, open to question whether that identification process has advanced materially in the past ten months. Certainly, the return to form of Ben Kay, the emergence of George Chuter and the work of Chris Jones have impressed here.
But players do not benefit from the odd hour of international rugby and nor do selectors. Nor do the public, who have been treated in the southern hemisphere over the past fortnight to development exercises. The international game has already been demeaned by its proliferation and now spectators have paid top dollar to watch, in essence, trial games.
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If the domestic structure is insufficient, that is where change must be made and all the squabbling between the RFU and the Premiership clubs cannot disguise it.