Why England coach Stuart Lancaster will never suffer Roy Hodgson"s dilemma

There are still flaws and kinks in the set-up of English rugby but the English

Qualified Player scheme has been a success. In brief, clubs are incentivised

to produce and play English players. The agreement came into being in 2008

when fewer than 60 per cent of the match-day squads were English.

Under European law, no employer is allowed to discriminate on the basis of

nationality. The Rugby Football Union or Premier Rugby cannot order its

members to select 23 Englishmen every week. But they can persuade them of

its benefits.

In part, this is down to money. If mere loose change by Gareth Bale standards,

the pot of £4.5million per season shared across the 12 clubs from joint

RFU/Premier Rugby sources (with another £500,000 invested in academies)

ensures financial reward for delivering English-qualified players.

The scheme makes for good business all around. Leicester won the Premiership

title last season, Harlequins the year before that with an 85 per cent

English line-up.

Opting for home-grown is no impediment to success. Players that have come

through the ranks, such as the Quins generation led by Chris Robshaw, often

make for a tight-knit, productive squad. Even Saracens, so often wrongly

maligned as a club with a South African nucleus, hit a mark of 67 per cent.

There are a few non-English superstars out there, from the summer arrival at

Northampton of Welshman George North to Quins’ long-standing fly-half,

former All Black Nick Evans.

But the galacticos are a dwindling breed. Those raiding parties into the

southern hemisphere to replenish stocks have been disbanded.

Scouts look closer to home, all the more so since the RFU decreed that it

would favour players playing in the Premiership. Four years ago the lure of

the euro in French rugby, and its far more generous salary cap, led to what

became a raft of players – Jonny Wilkinson, the Armitage brothers Delon and

Steffon, Andrew Sheridan, Jamie Noon, Iain Balshaw and Nick Kennedy (now at

Harlequins) – heading across the Channel.

Not one of them has been picked for the national team since they left. England

stuck to their principles and the traffic has slowed.

The Welsh rugby authorities have tried to twist arms but have far less

financial clout when trying to match offers from England or the hefty French

chequebooks that lured Jamie Roberts and Dan Lydiate.

Each successive year has seen growth in the ranks of the English-qualified.

Every club have an English core, with the average last season at 68 per

cent. England forwards coach Graham Rowntree told Telegraph Sport that

last month’s senior squad had been the most taxing to pick. The coaches have

a surfeit of choice. Roy Hodgson might wish that he could say the same.

Summer season would fail

Once again the notion of a global season is trumpeted. What it means in

reality is to adopt a southern hemisphere calendar, from February to

December. Rugby in the summer?

Up against Test cricket, Wimbledon, football World Cups and Olympic Games? No,

thanks. As for the putative World Club Championship, Heineken Cup winners

Toulon against Super 15 champs Waikato Chiefs (slated for Feb 2 2014) it

will always be undermined by one club being out of season.

Lewsey will suit Wales

Former England full-back Josh Lewsey has been appointed head of rugby in Wales.

It has been suggested he will suffer divided loyalties given Wales and

England are in the same World Cup pool in 2015. No, he will not. Once Lewsey

commits to something – Wasps, Sandhurst, Everest – he commits. Wales have a

good man.

Why England coach Stuart Lancaster will never suffer Roy Hodgson"s dilemma