The RFU’s director of performance rugby is hunting for gems among England’s lost generation and has found some ‘completely different animals’
It sounds counterintuitive but England’s finishing position in this year’s Six Nations is almost the least of the Rugby
Football Union’s current concerns. There is the Covid-19 financial pain, of course, and surging up on the rails is a proposal to bolt the Premiership’s relegation trapdoor for the next four years. Decisions made in the coming months will define English rugby for a generation or more.
Many of the issues are interlinked and fundamental to the game’s future. Where does a budding young professional player learn his trade if an underfunded Championship ceases to be a useful developmental environment? Or if a Premiership A league programme is no longer viable? What about late developers at university or college outside the academy system, presently holed up without any organised team sport and in danger of being lost to the game entirely?