RUGBY LEAGUE WORLD CUP WRAP #3 - THE INQUEST

England's 34-12 victory over Papua New Guinea earlier today all but confirmed their exit at the group stage of a World Cup for the first time; having fallen way short of the 68 points that they needed to overhaul to be ahead of Samoa on points difference. It was a win a name only and felt even more hollow than the 82-0 drubbing of France last week.

England didn't get the rub of the green with the draw. Though one could hardly express with confidence that, if England swapped places with New Zealand in Pool A, their fate would have been different. Is it really unforeseeable that England would have lost to both New Zealand and Fiji?

Ordinarily, I would use this post to reflect on the Papua New Guinea game. But such was its emptiness, there seems little purpose.

Instead, I will add my two pence to the ongoing navel-gazing debate in English Rugby League circles about how we can improve our fortunes for next time.

I'll give you a little spoiler, tinkering around the edges will do nothing. We have to be radical. The question is whether we are willing to do so. Arguably, the bigger question which nobody wants to ask is whether it is worth doing so.

Let's start by looking at the common suggestions to improve England's fortunes. Holding a mid-season training camp or international test. If you think that either of these would materially improve England's chances, please do get in touch with me as I also have some magic beans to sell you.

The only thing more depressing than England's performance in the World Cup was France's. Our near-neighbours look like they would struggle to find their opponents try line, if their opponents got locked in the dressing room.

I have attended a few England v France games over the years and every one of them has been boring and uncompetitive. Arguably, despite England's decline in international standings, France's has been sharper and the gap has grown. Beating France by 60 points is not going to do anything when you face international giants in World Cups.

Nor will our England players having coffee together more often and running into tackle bags for one hour in the regular season.

The lack of competitive opposition in the Northern Hemisphere is a real problem for England. And the governing body knows this, as demonstrated by the short-lived concept of England facing the 'Exiles' (a group of non-English players playing in Super League). More often than not, England lost to players who would never trouble the jerseys of their own nations.

If I had a pound for every time I heard "bring back the war of the Roses", well, I wouldn't be a millionaire, but my bank balance would look healthier.

I do question whether anyone who makes such a call actually watched any of these matches. Like with England v France or England v Exiles, the players seem more concerned with getting through the 80 minutes without getting injured than anything else. You cannot manufacture the intensity of Origin simply by giving an event the same name.

These matches had the intensity of a geriatric 100m race and the excitement of being stuck in a traffic jam. They have been hideous spectacles for fans, hence why attendances dropped the longer they went on and the players look to have gained nothing from it either.

...

This piece so far has focussed on what has not worked. So I think it's time to look at what might work. I am not arrogant enough to pretend to be an authority on improving the fortunes of our national team. If I was, I wouldn't be sat here typing this, but behind at desk at an underpaid job at RFL HQ.

I will instead look at what has worked for other nations and in other sports.

Tonga and Samoa haven't become good by chance. They have become good because they have access to better players. Gone are the days that these teams were made up of bottom end Super League players and people playing footy in the Australian outback. Their teams are now filled with people who play Origin, who play and win NRL Grand Finals. 

Maybe more importantly than all of that, they are filled with players who have come through the development system of NRL clubs.

We have some players in the NRL, but a lot of these came through the English system and are cherry-picked. If we want to improve, perhaps it is time to establish a system where some of our best and brightest young talent start in the NRL pathways at the age of 16 and reap the benefit of greater facilities, investment and coaching.

One thing you never see mentioned when we talk about how to improve England's success at international level is an acceptance that there must be trade offs. And here there would be too.

If we want our best and brightest in the NRL pathways earlier, that means more and more of our clubs will spend years developing players only to lose them, maybe before they even play for the first team.

Why would our clubs want to do that? Indeed, why *should* our clubs put in so much resource for so little return?

Another option is to look at the model of sports like Rugby Union or Cricket. Sports which are unashamedly internationals first.

England could seek mid-season opportunities to play international sides in Australia. That would mean that Wigan may lose Harry Smith, Leeds may lose Jake Connor, Hull KR may lose Mikey Lewis, St Helens may lose Jack Welsby, Wakefield may lose Mike McMeeken for a few weeks.

In Rugby Union and Cricket, this is normal, as many players are centrally contracted to their governing bodies.

In Rugby League's club first mentality, this is alien. In a land where coaches lose their jobs if they lose too many matches, I would understand why they wouldn't want to lose their best players for large chunks of the season. The same is true of clubs battling for supremacy ahead of the play offs.

And then comes the practical reality. Many nationalities now play Origin. There is likely little desire for internationals to clash with them in Australia.

If England are to make material improvement, we also have to make sacrifices. We will have to sacrifice the sacrilege of Super League. We may have to weaken our own clubs at the alter of the hegemonic NRL.

The question for me is not if England can improve. We can. It is whether we are willing to do what is necessary to make that happen. It is a question of whether it is even in our interests do that.

The reason the World Cup has such a bizarre structure this year is to reduce the number of matches players play, orchestrated by the RLPA (player's union) in Australia.

England's geography is a real issue and one that, as the game in the Pacific Nations grows, will exacerbate the gap.

The other way is to look to improve Super League so it is more competitive and the gap to the NRL is smaller. England has the most lucrative league in the most popular sport in the world. The Premier League, if you're in any doubt. In Rugby League's northern England heartlands, we have some of the biggest sporting giants there are globally.

Growth against a landscape where football's "big six" are bigger than our entire sport is something than no "marketing" (our favourite platitude which we see as the conquerer of all of our ills) can cure.

Many have said that England have gone backwards in recent years. I do not think that is necessarily true. I think England are static, whilst other countries have improved. The net result is that we are further away from glory than ever.

Our governance, our geography and the sport's footprint in England all mean that gap is going to be hard to close. And no mid-summer match against France in Leigh where England win 60-0 in front of 5,000 fans is going to change that.