by It’s not long before Christmas and three wise men from the Rugby Football Union are promising gifts. Up to 25 shiny new “enhanced” contracts for Steve Borthwick to be offered to a core group of England players over whom the head coach can exercise greater control from next season. A revamped league of up to 14 teams – to give Wasps, London Irish and Worcester, whose commercial brands are seen as too valuable to let go, a chance to get back on track quickly – and a player pathway system that will end the the stagnation of young talent.
Not before time, Bill Sweeney as chief executive, Conor O’Shea as performance director and Steve Diamond – recruited in an advisory capacity – are outlining their vision for English rugby. “the whole game solution” to a broken system, one under which four clubs have gone into crisis in the last 15 months and one which England reached the World Cup semi-finals in spite of, not because of. England’s “knee-jerk” team appears to be coming together with the aim of being “world-leading” in every department of professional rugby. Hope abounds.
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Sweeney holds the purse strings, O’Shea is the brains of the operation and Diamond is the muscle, the straight shooter against the union’s endless bureaucracy. As he puts it: “What’s been put before me is subcommittee, subcommittee, subcommittee.” But all three are aligned in their message that the professional game partnership (PGP) between the RFU and Premiership Rugby (PRL), which is yet to be finalized but is due to start next summer, can bring transformative change.
The most attractive part of the PGP is the enhanced contracts. Almost 30 years after missing the boat at the beginning of professionalism they are a step towards core contracts, even if not the whole thing. Sweeney describes the agreement eight years ago as “access” and more of it by England to their players. He says the PGP is more about “control” and if that sounds Orwellian, the point is that Borthwick has more input into things like conditioning and the medical programs of his players. After this year’s Six Nations he was claiming that his players were not fit enough and how he lost all control as they went back to their clubs. These contracts are designed to address that.
From the players’ point of view, they are about security. At £160,000 a man – regardless of squad status – players could earn significantly more on the previous pro-rata basis of around £23,000 per game but these contracts guarantee earnings regardless of injury . They also avoid a situation where a player hides a minor injury or is afraid to speak his mind for fear of losing that appearance fee. It was a hammer blow that Henry Arundell stopped one offer but Maro Itoje and Jamie George were persuaded to accept and the subsequent reception is likely to be positive. Having said that, the current level of uncertainty does not help some players and clubs who have yet to sign the PGP.
Injuries are inevitable so Borthwick will be using players outside the core 25, but even if only a handful are allowed for each matchday squad it is worth noting that the RFU is expected to make significant savings compared to the fee system look before. You’d expect the clubs to want financial compensation for relinquishing some control over their players but the RFU says it’s still a work in progress.
However, there are limits to how much control Borthwick will have. O’Shea focuses on conditioning, input tips on how many and which club games to attend, and talks about centralized performance data and standardized fitness testing. But Borthwick, for example, will not be able to force Harlequins to play Marcus Smith at full-back. Already the limitations are becoming clear if Sale’s promising prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour is taken as a case study. The RFU sees the 19-year-old as a loosehead, Sale believes he is a tighthead and it is not quite clear how that particular circle would be squared.
At least, as part of the RFU’s vision, he won’t be spending his weekend sitting in the stands. There is a determination to tackle the long-standing problem of promising young players struggling for game time. So the plan is to cap the Premiership team at around 35 players – although that has already been resisted by some clubs who, for example, are pushing hard for links with universities – and 12 transitional players such as supplement them. Regular England A games will also help. “ID Talent is not about finding talent, it’s about giving talent opportunities and that’s where English rugby has failed miserably,” says O’Shea.
Player development also plays a role in the RFU’s determination to reshape the Championship, even if the desire to restore Wasps, Worcester and London Gaelic is a more significant driving factor. The Championship clubs are more or less on board but are very concerned about whether the RFU and PRL are really committed to promotion and relegation and whether they want the league to be a shorthand “meritocracy”. that they do not want to allow three clubs that went bankrupt. fast-tracks back into the second row.
They also want to know how much funding they would receive – something the RFU has so far been unable to answer and the clubs are not happy with their take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards the union. “If we get two clubs interested and everyone says no, you go back to the status quo and lose this opportunity,” says Sweeney. “But we’re not going to invest in something that can’t be invested.”
The bidding process to take part in the second tier of the revamp is due to start in February and while the RFU is confident there will be enough interest to go ahead, significant hurdles remain.
So it is clear to everyone that the RFU is excited about its vision, that there are clear boundaries and that relationships and goodwill between stakeholders, rather than mandates or legislation, will bring change. As far as England and the Premiership are concerned, the early signs are good. Borthwick was coming from humble beginnings but anecdotally, he is already repairing bridges he found burned when he was appointed.
“Steve has been wise since he’s been on the job,” says Diamond. “Eddie Jones came up to Sale once while he was there and the only question he had was that he asked me to play Ben Curry in a semi-final!”
As far as the RFU’s relationship with the Championship clubs, however, there is clearly a way to go.
