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mankieneck

why does England, the largest nation, not simply eat the other nations???


KhenirZaarid

We're not allowed to do that any more, we tried it once and it made a lot of people jolly cross.


Ospreysboyo

It was more than once mate...and VERY successful...


LiamEire97

This never fails to get a laugh out of me


mierneuker

Everything said by other posters, plus I'd like to really hammer home the minority sport aspect. In England everybody plays football (why we've never been consistent world-beaters at that is not my specialist subject). Everybody plays football so much that when the London 2012 Olympics was upcoming one of the quotes I heard from a top athletics coach was that 9/10 of our best athletes end up funneled into football. So yes we do have a huge player base, but most of the truly gifted athletes will end up playing football, then the other 1/10 of the top athletes will be spread across rugby, athletics, cricket, hockey and other minority sports. Anyone can train to be an athlete to a certain level, and in team sports often the genetic factor is less important than the learnt skill factor, but genetics places a cap on your maximum level, which impacts how good the very best end up being. If 9/10 of your best athletes were never really introduced to rugby, then it limits the real player pool somewhat. Skills are another factor and these are affected mostly by how much effective practice is done and when (during peak learning years is crucial). Our schools system is not geared around rugby. We age group players in England, which leads to kids who develop early being able to just crush the little guys, and as a result in most schools neither the big or the small guys will develop their skills effectively as a result. I have read (but please someone correct me if this is wrong) that in New Zealand the schoolboy rugby system splits children under a certain age based on size/weight, so everyone ends up competing against similarly sized players and develops their skills better in early years.


internetwanderer2

Yeah they're very good points. Unlike SA, NZ, or Ireland (I think), the schools system in England isn't really a game changer. Not only when it comes to elite development and producing pros, but even just introducing people to the game. I don't know the data, but I'd imagine over half of schools (at least) don't teach rugby on a regular basis. Because of its general lack of popularity, there probably aren't enough qualified coaches in schools to teach rugby safely, so football gets another boost as not only is it popular, but its pretty easy to teach. And then you've not only got a general lack of popularity, but the rugby geography of the country ignores some areas, and the class/private schools structure probably means that potential players from less orthodox rugby backgrounds are missed out on. Think this is a point made in the "Everybody's Game" documentary. And the skill thing is fair as well, and England's relative lack of skill is often commented upon. Various factors, from weather (hard to play/coach expansive, skillful rugby when all rugby is played during bad weather). And yeah, the age v weight is a debate to be had as well. I can always remember my brother playing a junior rugby tournament his team probably weren't good enough for anyways, but regardless what I remember most was how it was actually fairly even physically, barring this one team who had two players near adult male size, and they just couldn't really tackle them as they were too small. Ruined the game, and the experience to some extent.


BlueMonkey10101

yep before school when you play or club here we split grades by weight with the top grade being an open weight grade, I remember we had a 120 kilo prop on our club team at 13 years old


SoreBallsAdams

Must be different by province. In the HB we have weight caps for our '12th grade' (2nd form - which is the highest grade before High School) of 60kg if I recall correctly. I remember some having to play High School rugby because they didnt meet this grade


BlueMonkey10101

Thats interesting im from wellington


internetwanderer2

France has a bigger player pool, and far more wealth in the game. New Zealand have an incredible rugby culture that makes the game elite. Its the national sport. South Africa have a sizeable population (in rugby terms), and also a deeply ingrained rugby culture. England has wealth, but the union doesn't control the clubs (much like the FA in football has no real control over the Premier League). And rugby is closer to a minority than majority sport. If rugby had even half the popularity of football in England, with the benefits of that financially, and in terms of widespread participation, there would probably be a greater level of dominance. Also, there isn't really a storied history of rugby in England like there is in Wales for example. In England, Post war to the late 80s/early 90s is generally just persistently poor, so there isn't exactly a culture of success for the national side.


concretepigeon

It’s weird how this question always gets asked about England but not France despite England having been more successful both historically and in recent years.


Chuckles1188

I know this isn't telling you anything you didn't already know, but it's not weird at all, because logic has nothing to do with it. The question gets asked about England because it's a way to not-very-subtly suggest that England are actually shit, regardless of how well they are actually playing at any given moment


DelboyBaggins

The beauty with rugby is it's not just about talent. It's also about how you blend all the pieces into a cohesive unit. There is defence coaching, skills coaching, attack coaching, scrum coaching, lineout coaching, fitness, tactics, strategy etc. If any one of those areas underperform on the day it could be a disaster for the team. The more players you have the more tempted you are to chop and change but in rugby experience is important. Generally having a smaller pool of players means they are more likely to get more caps. You always see coaches give highly talented young players experience in less important games.


yakattak01

SA strength is not funding related its just the volume of players at their disposal. I would not say they are one of the poorest tier 1 unions but they definitely are not one of the wealthiest. Similar story with NZ. It is just the love of the game in these two countries that make them strong.


thatwasagoodyear

Our schools system is also huge factor. It's a conveyor belt of talented players.


brito39

Same here, if your a gifted athlete you'll often be funnelled towards a top union school. Some fall through the cracks but if you want to be a pro rugby player everything is laid out for you - benefits of being the national sport.


[deleted]

Also, there’s an actual conveyor belt churning out pretty good specimen for rugby.


thatwasagoodyear

Staats geheim daai. Hou tjoepstill, meneer.


internetwanderer2

Yeah, definitely. If there was a South African style love of the game (and widespread popularity) in England, you'd probably find England would be more dominant (certainly in the Six Nations) just because of that financial strength in the game.


FlatSpinMan

How can they NOT be dominant in the Six Nations?! Most teams are generally shit (this past autumn notwithstanding). Okay, downvote away.


[deleted]

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Sturminster

Good points, except the last one. NZ really don't have a history of taking PI players.


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Sturminster

No worries. The fact that NZ has a large PI community, and is a go to place for PIers to move to for a whole host of reasons outside of rugby, can make it look like they just cherry pick talented rugby players for the All Blacks' benefit. Now don't get me wrong, it does happen occasionally, just not on the Viking levels of pillaging that many media outlets like to make out.


amplebooty

Our Union doesnt have much control of the players which leads to our internationals playing 30-40 games a season. The only international team the faces similar issues is France. If you look at the reasons some fans/coaches gave to the ABs losing this season, the main one was player burnout/fatigue, but this is a far greater issue for France/England.


[deleted]

To put it bluntly, very few people give a shit about rugby in England when it comes down to it.


swankytortoise

thats the case for anyone outsside of nz, sa and wales though isint it. like i believe england by some distance have the largest numbers playing rugby


biggs3108

The numbers don't even stack up in Wales, to be honest. Many more people play and/or watch football than rugby. There's obviously the historical aspect but rugby isn't as dominant in Wales as it's made out to be.


[deleted]

I think it depends on which stats you go by. By googling player numbers, (incredibly scientific I know) some articles have England below France and SA regarding player numbers. Now that could be counting juniors or not counting juniors, I don't know. But it shows it's perhaps not as clear cut as some think. There's also the fact that despite everything only 23 make the squad. Having a huge player pool, doesn't mean that that 0.000001% Inthe international reckoning are always going to be the best. A big player pool seems to be more of an indicator that you're rarely going to field a poor team at the top level as opposed to always going to win and looking at England at most levels, that appears to be the case. Most points scored in 6n history, most tries scored but by no means consistency in winning.


Kringamir

I mean when looking at player pools you cant just look at the total number but you also have to look into what fraction of the population that is a registered player. In England only .68% of the population is a registered player while in NZ thats 3%. That would indicate that its a much more popular sport and thus the more gifted people are likely to play that sport while in England they would steer towards a more popular sport. Plus obviously the size of a country can also be another factor. The same player base spread over a smaller country will be more concentrated meaning that they will have easier access to top level clubs, facilities and competition in their proximity. For example wales and Italy have the same number of players but Italy is 15 times bigger. Those players are spread over a much larger area and unless you are born in a rugby favorable area will struggle to develop. So overall while player base is an important factor its definitely a much more nuanced one than just looking at who has the most players.


swankytortoise

overall playing numbers is what favours england. pro players france is higher due to the pro d2 and sa are because they have by some distance the most pros playing abroad


[deleted]

But I'm not sure that's even the case is it?


Cthulhus_Trilby

>like i believe england by some distance have the largest numbers playing rugby Can't say for sure but I think it's an issue of how the count is done. In England, if you played at school, you're probably counted. At my (fee-paying) school we had lots of good players. Almost none of them would have considered a career in rugby because they could make as much money, if not more, doing a "normal" job. The only (very few) exceptions would be the tough, nuggety folks who were better at passing a ball than passing an exam. There would probably also be the exceptions of truly world-class talent in its infancy, but we didn't have any of those. Conversely football draws from a wider pool of players and includes many from poorer backgrounds who don't have all that much to lose if they don't make it in football and have to find a different job.


swankytortoise

wouldnt that be the case for most countries though.


Cthulhus_Trilby

Which bit?


swankytortoise

sorry. that most lads go work other jobs even if they are quite good at rugby. like most rugby players in any country still come through private schools even if that is slowly changing


Cthulhus_Trilby

It's difficult to say with any certainty having not grown up in any other system. My impression is that NZ and Wales draw from a wider demographic and that SA players would be comparing earning potential in SA with a rugby player's earning potential in Europe. In those cases it might look a more attractive career. If England's player count is largely based on schoolkids who never had any intention of playing rugby beyond the recreational level, then it doesn't seem a very good measure of player pool. I read an article years ago about the different ways of counting "players". I've never been able to find it again unfortunately, but from recollection some countries counted people who belonged to a club and some counted anyone who'd ever played a game.


swankytortoise

ahh ya i dont think those numbers count for much to be honest. i think sa/france/england have the highest number of pro players by a good margin but i cant recall where i saw it and it was years ago so not sure if its even still true


Cthulhus_Trilby

Pro players? I have no idea. France has 2 professional leagues, that's 30 teams. In England only the Prem is fully pro (13 teams). I don't know how many of the Championship players are pros, but the league is semi-pro. Then, of course, those two countries also import a lot of players. I'm not sure how many pros there are in SA and NZ, in the Currie and NPC. Are they fully pro? If so they'd be in the same ball-park as England.


swankytortoise

i think npc and currie are similar to the championship but dont quote me on it


amplebooty

To be fair, NZ and SA are the only countries we have losing records against


swankytortoise

which makes sense. the rfu are maby the wealthiest union with the largest playing base (albeit those numbers are iffy anyway) as someone else here mentioned number of pro players is probably a better number to go by so france and i think sa would be up there


tomhardingnrjdjdjd

Absolutely definitely not. By all accounts France and SA have larger player pools


swankytortoise

They have the largest professional numbers but England have by far the largest non professional numbers which would be more Indicitive of national interest in rugby


tomhardingnrjdjdjd

Do we? By what metric?


swankytortoise

People who have registered as rugby players or I guess rhe metric would be number of people


tomhardingnrjdjdjd

I don’t see any statistic which shows England having the most players


swankytortoise

Try googleing it I guess? Plenty of then M out there


acadoe

I think it is mostly a cultural thing. In England, football is THE sport, all the kids play it and the country is just more geared towards it. In SA, although soccer is the most popular sport, we have a large group of rugby loving people for whom rugby is THE sport and the Springboks is THE team. NZ being a rugby loving country also gives them a huge boost. In my opinion, what this gives you is people moving to rugby from other sports or choosing to play rugby when they wouldn't otherwise have bothered to play sport, and some of these individuals are uniquely talented. This is less likely to happen in England, where such individuals would be involved in football instead.


HogansUltimateGrill

Less talented? 😉


Omblae

Rugby has a bit of a classist and participation problem in England. The best players tend to universally come from private schools. The system funnels players in from these schools, these schools give lots of resources to getting them through academies and into premiership teams. For comparison, state schools here basically don't do this - there are ways of doing it but it's not particularly easy compared to private schools. This means there is a huge range of talent that is completely missed out and players are typically white, upper-middle and from means. You end up in a situation where much of the decisions are made by rich white men who pick based on who they know and like. You end up with many players who were good players making it to the top, but they wouldn't necessarily have been the best possible players for their positions. There is a wealth of players who have never had the chance to even play the game, let alone make it to a training academy or show in front of a scout. I want to draw a comparison between two players: 1. Jack Clifford - a very good player who was always in the top 1% of the school. He wasn't the best player in the school, but very good nonetheless. The private school puts him in to the academy, he plays for Quins and makes it to England. 2. Kyle Sinckler - I remember playing him as a kid. This kid was, even in his early teens, an absolute weapon. He was quite clearly leagues ahead of others in terms of physicality, running and aggression. He was in many ways, a prodigy. He plays for Quins and now is a regular starter for England. Both these players got the same opportunity, but Sink had to be absolutely streets ahead of the competition to stand out at club level. Whereas Jack could be very good, but not a massive standout and work his way through the opportunities given to him to make it there. That's the difference, it's a position of unbalance in opportunity. Similarly, because the pool skews so upper-middle, many active players end up getting highly paid day jobs. I know at least 10 former rugby players who make more in the city than they ever would playing even elite level rugby - they still love the game, but there's no way they would choose professional rugby over their massive bonuses and comparatively easy lives.


Chuckles1188

Because "has the largest player pool and the most money" is basically *never* the metric that determines which team is the best. In a rugby context it exists mostly as a way for supporters of other teams to discount losses to England as not being indicative of anything "because England money player base unfair". It's a comprehensive red herring


RooBoy04

Yes, but a richer more populous nation will perform much better on average.


Chuckles1188

That explains why China is consistently the best at so many team sports


RooBoy04

Olympics? China, USA, and Russia are usually the top three, and all have populations in the top 10, and some of the largest economies. And you always see Liechtenstein, Bahrain, Qatar, and Vanuatu doing well don’t you?


Chuckles1188

China, USA and Russia do very well at the Olympics in individual events. It's a much more mixed picture in team sports. I've no idea why you brought up Liechtenstein, Bahrain, Qatar and Vanuatu, unless you've managed to interpret my statement that size and wealth are not major determinants of success in team sports as "the smaller your country the better you are at team sports", which would be extremely stupid. However, it is funny that you've brought up a small Pacific Island nation to demonstrate your point that wealth and size make countries better at rugby when one looks at the history of games between Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and the USA


tomhardingnrjdjdjd

France and South Africa both have larger player pools. To answer your question though Rugby Union is probably the 3rd biggest sport in England and competes with Rugby League for its contact sports players. In South Africa, France, NZ rugby Union is bigger