Harlequins - not so Elite?

Harlequins have started the season ominously, with four straight wins and 19 points from a possible 20, and the rest of the Aviva Premiership is already playing catch up with the aristocrats from West London. The likes of Leicester and Saracens do not even have the early season excuse of losing players through Rugby World Cup selection. Their success should be great news for England, as the majority of the Quins team are English born and bred. Five of the squad are currently in the England Elite squad – but shouldn’t a few more be?

England are still very much a work in progress side but in just over nine months their coach, ex school teacher Stuart Lancaster, has worked wonders, when you consider the situation English rugby found itself in during and after the 2011 Rugby World Cup. He has installed a new backroom division and he has not been afraid to get the proverbial cane out - temporarily banishing players from the squad should they step out of line, just ask Harlequins’ very own Danny Care. And importantly, the players appear to enjoy being part of the new set up. But for all the positive vibes, the squad does not look completely settled and it is surprising that a few more Quins players are not involved. 

One of the reasons that Twitter interests many of its users more than other social media sites is because it offers the immediate and instinctive insights of certain individuals that previously would have remained private. Sir Clive Woodward gave us one such impulse reaction, shortly after Leicester’s home loss against Harlequins on Saturday, when he Tweeted “(Nick) Easter v impressive, if England are going to pick on merit he needs to come back in”. Twenty four hours later in another Tweet, SCW also asked Mo Farah to give him a call. But back to the rugby, everyone is hoping that Lancaster targets immediate success and is not too obsessed with the next Rugby World Cup. As we learned in South Africa, Ben Morgan, a terrific prospect, is still learning his trade in international rugby. Maybe it’s time to let Easter earn back some of that £35k he lost down the toilet after England were knocked out early during last year’s miserable Rugby World Cup campaign?

From a possible recall to the uncapped contingent and second row, George Robson is a player that continues to impress with each performance. He is everywhere; making offloads, smashing tackles, hitting breakdown after breakdown and even scoring tries. His line out work and scrummaging are sufficient, although recently England coaches have picked locks predominantly on their set piece proficiency. Geoff Parling and Mouritz Botha both performed admirably in the Six Nations and on the summer tour to South Africa. But having already captained his club and country (albeit in a midweek tour match in SA) in the absence of Chris Robshaw and being part of a such a confident and winning environment, the time is right to finally give Robson an opportunity at the highest level, possibly to form a new second row partnership with Courtney Lawes.

Joe Gray is another Quins forward that is close to moving from the Saxons to the Elite squad, although his role should be more of a support position to Dylan Hartley, who on current form is favourite to wear the number two jersey for the Lions next summer. Either Gray or Tom Youngs, of Leicester, are likely to replace Rob Webber, desperately unlucky with a persistent shoulder injury, and Gray’s contribution to Quins’ win over Youngs’ Tigers puts him in pole position for the vacant slot.

And what about out wide? Danny Care and Mike Brown are already part of the full England squad and both should line up at scrum half (unless Ben Youngs returns from injury and quickly finds his 2010 form) and full back respectively for England in their first Autumn international against Fiji. With Ben Foden injured, club mate Ross Chisholm could even provide cover for Brown, and on the wing, although Jonny May of Gloucester is also in the mix (and this one cannot be settled by a try off). Quins’ only current Lion Ugo Monye is getting ever closer to a recall, although probably not a starting place. Centre has been a problem position for England in recent years and while Manu Tuilagi is a certain starter, Matt Hopper (remember his Pirate pass?) and George Lowe are not too far away from favourites Jonathan Joseph and Brad Barritt for the other starting berth. 

The rigid rules of the England Elite squad make it unlikely that Lancaster will make many changes to his squad before November. But do not be surprised if more Quins players join captain Robshaw, Marler, Care, Turner-Hall and Brown and make the revised Six Nations squad in January. If Quins continue their early season form and start the Heineken Cup in similar fashion, a real possibility as they have a favourable draw in Pool 3, Chris Robshaw will soon be leading an England squad that contains many more familiar faces.

(For the record I am not a Quins fan! Interested to hear your thoughts so please comment or follow me on Twitter @AMP_Rugby)

Twenty into two: a nice problem but who should Gatland pick on the wings?

Here’s a question for you. Who will be the starting British and Irish Lions wingers against Australia in the first test in Brisbane next June? I am not a huge fan of Lions speculation this early - John Bentley and Jason Robinson were two unexpected (wing) tourists and few, if any, would have picked them in the September before the 1997 and 2001 tours, respectively. But truth be told, I have already had a couple of conversations about it - that’s what happens when you have two rugby playing brothers. The Lions have huge strength in depth on the wing, similar to that of the back row, but who will get the nod?

In 2009 Sir Ian and co picked 5 wingers in the original squad (there’s no point in looking at the 2005 squad as if you weren’t selected on that tour you were actually in the minority). A couple of players in the Rabo Direct Pro 12 have already put their hands up for selection, but not necessarily the players that were in your pint filled discussions on this topic a few months ago. Tim Visser, the flying Dutchman but finally capped on Scotland’s summer tour to Australia and the Pacific Islands, currently tops the try scoring standings with a monstrous six tries in three matches. He has also topped the end of season charts for the last three campaigns – an outstanding achievement and demonstrates that he is not a flash in a pan character. Andy Fenby, who incidentally Visser Tweeted is his favourite to top the scoring charts this time round, has started the season well and has three tries to his name. Man (boy) mountain George North, a player who continues to improve each time he puts on the red shirt of Wales, is a born Lions Test starter and is actually second on the list with four tries. His current fellow Welsh wing partner, and Grand Slam winner, Alex Cuthbert is the final name to appear and we all know what he is capable of. Throw Tommy Bowe, outstanding in South Africa in 2009, Andrew Trimble, Keith Earls, Leigh Halfpenny, Lee Jones, Sean Lamont and Max Evans into the mix and the Lions clearly have a selection dilemma. And that’s only taking the Celtic nations into consideration.

Over to England and Chris Ashton remains the first winger on the England team sheet, but for how much longer? Christian Wade has had a sensational start to the season for Wasps, even scoring a Billy Whizz on Latham-esque try in his first Aviva Premiership outing against defending champions Harlequins at Twickenham. Fellow youngster Marland Yarde has also scored tries and played well in a faltering London Irish team. We have seen in the past that previous Lions tour experience is invaluable and if Ugo Monye continues to regain some form, after various injuries, who would bet against the Quins flyer making back to back Lions squads? Matt Banahan, David Strettle and Charlie Sharples have fallen behind slightly in recent months but are by no means out of contention. Could Kyle Eastmond make a late surge into the England set up and then into Lions reckoning? I would also give a mention to Tom Varndell – four tries in his first three matches this season (as has the relatively unknown quantity of Matt Jess of the Exeter Chiefs - but who was the now excellent Tom Johnson until he was selected for the Saxons and then full England team?) and he seems to have a much stronger physical dimension to his ball carrying and even better support play. England have a tendency to shut the door on talented attacking players, if their defence, or physicality in general, is suspect. Matthew Tait and the electric James Simpson-Daniel are testament to this, although injuries have also been their downfall. And look at Topsy Ojo – the poor chap might retire with only two England caps to his name but amazingly with two tries BOTH against New Zealand and BOTH actually scored in the land of the long white cloud, albeit in a defeat, but still against Dan and Richie, if that gives an amazing stat even more credence.

For those of you who haven’t got past the tight five yet, and trust me you will struggle to do so nine months before the tour, there you have around twenty names to consider, but remember only going for 5-6 spots. There appears to be the perfect balance between size and power, footwork and pace, running lines and kicking ability. The latter, and his versatility at being able to play full back, should secure Leigh Halfpenny a seat on the plane (could the same apply to Delon Armitage?) I feel some of the English players have question marks on their defence and certain players have a strange nous for holding the ball in the wrong hand or picking the one, maybe even only, late running line which will not lead to a try being scored. Around ten of those names are likely to dominate most clubhouse discussions and North and Bowe are currently my favourites for the coveted number 11 and 14 shirts. That said, Ashton has also proved a real thorn in the Aussies side in the past. If you disagree, head to youtube and look at his three tries against them in Sydney and Twickenham in 2010. (Intriguingly the same applies to Ben Youngs – having unique form against one country is a strange concept but could it prove to be the difference between a winning and losing series?). A lot of people will argue that the Wade’s, Fenby’s and Eastmond’s should not be in consideration because they are uncapped. But Lions tours are not won on cap tallies - just ask Sir Clive Woodward. Form is paramount – just ask Jason Robinson, Alan Tait and John Bentley.

I will always remember the Jim Telfer “getting picked is the easy bit” quote from the 1997 victorious Lions tour to South Africa. Whilst he was talking about actual Test match selection and motivating the team before the first test, it looks like it will actually be very difficult for the wingers to be selected for the 2013 tour, let alone start the test matches. But that is certainly not something (hopefully one day “Sir” if that is possible?) Warren and co will be worrying about.

Pro 12 European Cup qualification: storm in a teacup? Written by @AMP_Rugby

English and French sides, well more precisely, Leicester Tigers, Toulouse and London Wasps used to dominate the Heineken Cup (HCup). Johnson, Pelous and Dallaglio used to almost take turns at lifting the trophy. Add Northampton's win in 2000 and from 2000-2007 English and French clubs won 7 of the first 8 HCups in the noughties. But in recent years the Irish provinces have created a dynasty of their own, with Leinster and Munster victorious in 5 out of the last 7 instalments of European rugby's show piece event, clearly to the annoyance of the Top 14 and Aviva Premiership (AP) administrators. This has led to England and France serving notice to withdraw their clubs from ERC competitions from the 2014-2015 season. They are pushing for only the top six (Rabo Direct) Pro 12 (formerly Celtic League) teams to be guaranteed places in the HCup, instead of having 10 automatic places. In theory, they argue, teams would be less likely to rest players in Pro 12 matches in the run up to European ties, which should make HCup matches more fair. Money, in terms of the revenue redistributed from ERC competitions and feeding back to English and French clubs, is undoubtedly the real reason for the threatened withdrawal. The Pro 12 teams receive a disproportionately high return of funding from the ERC whereas the Top 14 and AP revenues are split between their 14 and 12 teams, respectively, so each receives far less than the Irish teams. But, for the purpose of my first blog, let's focus on the proposed Anglo French so called merit based changes to the qualification format, pretend their desired changes will be implemented and look at how this would have affected previous editions of the HCup.

If we analyse the final stages of the HCup from 2006 – 2012 looking at the Pro 12 clubs to make the semi-finals and the Pro 12 league standings from 2005 – 2012, all of the Pro 12 HCup semi-finalists from 2006 – 2011 HAD finished in the Top 6 of the Pro 12, in the previous season. In the 2011-2012 HCup, however, Edinburgh would be the first, well ONLY (out of 12 Pro 12 HCup semi-finalists), team to fall foul of the Anglo French system. They became the first Scottish side to make the HCup semi-finals, which included a terrific quarter final win over four times winners Toulouse, yet they had finished 8th in the 2010-11 Pro 12.

Under the "new" qualification rules would these semi-finalists also have qualified for the following year's event? Similar results are produced:

2006: Leinster and Munster both finished in the Top 6.

2007: Llanelli Scarlets finished 4th.

2008: Munster finished 3rd.

2009: Leinster and Cardiff both finished in the top 6.

2010: Leinster and Munster both finished in the Top 6.

2011: Leinster finished 2nd in the Pro 12.

2012: Leinster and Ulster finished in the Top 6 but Edinburgh finished 11th.

Poor old Edinburgh - the only club seemingly bearing the brunt of the "new" Anglo French qualification system, if we backdate it.

There's no need to check if English and French teams qualified for the HCup. But were AP and Top 14 HCup semi-finalists able to secure qualification for the following year's tournament?

For the Premiership four from eight did not:

- 1997-98 HCup champions Bath made the semi-finals in 2005-06 but failed to qualify for the next season's event.

- Northampton made the semi-finals of the 2006-07 HCup but were relegated from the Premiership in the same season!

- London Irish (who only qualified because of Wasps' tournament win in 2006-07) and Saracens were also semi-finalists in 2007-08 but finished 7^th and 8^th in the Premiership respectively and failed to qualify for the 2008-09 HCup.

For the Top 14:

- 2010-11 semi-finalists Perpignan finished 8^th in the Top 14, failing to qualify for next season’s event.
- (Biarritz were losing finalists in 2009-10 and only secured HCup qualification by making the final, as they only finished 7th in the Top 14 that year (their opponents Toulouse had already secured qualification after finishing 4^th in the Top 14). Under the Anglo French qualification rules Biarritz would also have qualified as the remaining two qualification places are for the winners of the HCup and Amlin Challenge Cup).

Would Bath, Northampton, Saracens or Perpignan have won the HCup in those years if they had not been fighting to qualify for the same competition the following season? Very unlikely. And why between 2006 and 2012, Leicester (twice) and Biarritz (once), did both make the HCup finals the same year they won their domestic league title? In one of those seasons (2006-07) Leicester also won the Anglo Welsh Cup. Clearly fighting battles on two, or three, fronts is not such an issue for AP or Top 14 sides.

The above analysis does ignore performances of teams earlier in the tournament and Pro 12 teams obviously did not have the same pressure of having to qualify for HCups so we will never know how a change to the qualifying rules would actually have affected their HCup performances. But it is also impossible to believe that Leinster or Munster would not have won HCup finals in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012, with this added burden. In practice nothing would have changed - if you need more proof, just look at the league placing each province secured in the year they won the HCup:

2006: Munster finished 3rd.

2008: Munster finished 3rd.

2009: Leinster finished 3rd.

2011: Leinster finished 2nd.

2012: Leinster finished top but lost the play off final to the Ospreys.

Munster and Leinster simply became experts at winning the big European matches, just as Leicester, Toulouse and Wasps had learned in earlier editions of the HCup. A generation of players from across the Irish sea have replaced Johnson, Dallaglio and Pelous in becoming club European greats - in O'Connell, O'Callaghan, O'Gara, O'Driscoll, Heaslip and Kearney et al, the best club European players of a generation hail from Ireland (you can probably add Thierry Dusautoir to that list but who else from France / England?). The two provinces have also recruited excellent foreign players to complement their outstanding home grown talent - Elsom, Nacewa, Howlett and Mafi to name a few. The same is currently in practice at Ulster with Pienaar, Afoa and Muller joining Ferris, Best and Trimble in helping them to reach the 2012 HCup final. The foundations of the earlier success of French and English sides were built on solid home grown talent, just like this current generation of Irish players. The English players at Leicester and Wasps in particular were better than any group of English players currently playing in any AP squad.

Is relegation a more important issue than qualification requirements? The Top 14 and AP need, and are fortunate in my view to have, relegation. France and England have enough clubs for two professional leagues and a series of lower divisions with evolving teams that strive to be in these professional leagues. Imagine a Pro 12 with relegation? The loss of TV and sponsorship revenue from not being in top flight rugby would have disastrous consequences for its clubs, let alone them having to worry about performances in that year's HCup. In the example of Edinburgh earlier, would they really have put as much effort into Europe with the risk of being relegated from the Pro 12? Northampton did and look what happened to them in 2007, although you could argue they are a better club for this experience (so are Harlequins). But look at the examples of Bristol and Bourgoin, both of whom played in the HCup in recent years but are a life time away from competing in it again (Bourgoin have been relegated twice). The Pro 12 will never have relegation - does this therefore mean that qualification for Europe's elite Rugby competition will be never be entirely merit based, as so desired by England and France?

The centralisation of the best local talent in the provinces or regions will continue to work against France and England teams, regardless of changes to the qualification system. How the Ospreys, four times winners of the Pro 12 (more than both Munster and Leinster), have never even made an HCup final is beyond me and the performance of the Welsh regions in the HCup in general is a separate discussion altogether. Due to a self-imposed salary cap, which is lower than the level in France, England and Ireland, and the loss of key talent to France it will be even harder Welsh region to win the nation's first HCup. Munster's success in Europe is beginning to dwindle due to retirements (David Wallace, Jerry Flannery and John Hayes) but English and French clubs need to produce new groups of winners that are concentrated at few of their clubs. Harlequins are possibly on the verge of producing something special, through their home grown talent and in Nick Evans they have the best fly half in European rugby (apologies Mr Sexton) but like the Ospreys have never even played in an HCup semi-final...

A compromise is sure to be reached between all ERC stakeholders at a meeting in Dublin this week and it is unlikely that the top 6 teams from the Pro 12 will qualify for a revised HCup (thanks for wasting my time looking into this issue!!). Judging by the above simple findings it would not guarantee English and French success and as stated earlier the real reason for their threat to leave European competitions is to do with money - the AP's huge TV deal with BT Vision emphasises this point.  As a final thought though, it would be very bad news for rugby in Europe if a future scenario where no Italian or Scottish teams, for example, qualified for a revised top tier European competition. At a time when Georgia and Russia, and other European countries, are vastly improving, it would be a giant leap backwards if the discussions do not safeguard the participation, every year, of teams from each of the Six Nations countries.