England system is OK, just pick right players!

In his column last week, Jeff Probyn bemoaned the deals struck by the RFU and the Premiership to allow the national side to have access to the best England-qualified players around.

- COLIN BOAG

He suggested that the RFU should ‘start a development plan for another source of players outside of the Premiership’, something that I believe would have struck most people as rather odd – where would these players be found?

The RFU could decide to field a team of Championship players, although that would be a prime case of cutting off their nose to spite their face, or I suppose it could try to impose some sort of a weird central contract situation where it tries to mop up young talent before the Premiership clubs get them!

That, however, wouldn’t have a chance of working, because the Union just doesn’t have the money to pay the going rate – they might get them cheap early on in their career, but players aren’t going to stick with it once they’re established and able to command open-market salaries.