Neal Collins
You wait years for an all-conquering England team to come along and what happens? The whole edifice threatens to fall down around your ears. England proved again at Twickenham last Saturday that their current crop of rugby players and coaches are a little bit special. After record wins over Wales and Italy, Scotland found themselves beaten by a record margin 43-3.
The winning streak is up to seven and the side is looking better balanced than ever. Clive Woodward, under threat after the World Cup, suddenly looks like a genius.
That’s why the pain of seeing off-the-field problems scupper England’s success is so hard to swallow. England fans are used to seeing their sporting hopes sink without trace on the football, rugby and cricket fields. To suddenly find they have a rugby side which regularly breaks records and appears to be a global force is a quite unexpected privilege.
But then along comes foot and mouth disease to put the Six Nations championship and possibly even the Lions tour under threat with a club versus country dispute ready to add to the misery.
Unless I read the runes all wrong, it’s the latter which will really destroy Woodward’s dreams of finally landing the Grand Slam. The Six Nations committee is promising to rearrange games to complete the championship they’ll even go into next season to get things finished after the foot and mouth problems but that will only further annoy the clubs.
Quite rightly, the premiership sides feel they pay the players massive wages and they deserve more sympathy from the Rugby Football Union (RFU). While the old farts at Twickenham see the national stadium filled even for one-sided thrashings against minnows like Italy, Argentina and … erm … Scotland, the club chairs are being asked to pay six-figure salaries to players at clubs where a crowd of 10 000 is a rare phenomenon.
One of the main reasons England have emerged as such a force is the development of a top class, well-paid premiership. Unlike soccer, rugby’s top flight has a constructive blend of foreign and local talent and the emergence of full-time, highly trained players has seen the chasm between them and the southern hemisphere giants reduced to a bite-sized gap.
Much like cricket, England can regularly fill grounds for international fixtures while the club or county sides suffer. But cricket appears to have come up with a solution in central contracts and adequate compensation for the counties, who spend long stretches of the summer without their stars.
The RFU could learn a lesson or two from the men in white.
ENDS