Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

'I don't think England have enough quality to ignore the overseas rule'

Henry Arundell of England celebrates scoring his team's first try with teammate Jack Willis during the Rugby World Cup France 2023 match between England and Chile at Stade Pierre Mauroy on September 23, 2023 in Lille, France. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Lawrence Dallaglio has called for England to address their current overseas rule, claiming the “financial landscape” of rugby has changed.

ADVERTISEMENT

England are currently not allowed to select players that are not competing in the Gallagher Premiership- a rule that has been in place since the 2011 World Cup.

That has proven to be problematic at times over the past decade, with players such as Steffon Armitage and Nick Abendanon thriving while in the Top 14. However, the rule has never been under such scrutiny, with an increasing number of England players making the move abroad, not helped by the demise of Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish last season.

Video Spacer

Finn Russell discusses THAT big tackle on Cameron Woki

Video Spacer

Finn Russell discusses THAT big tackle on Cameron Woki

Four members of England’s World Cup squad are now based in France, with a further handful linked with moves away from the Gallagher Premiership. Former captain Owen Farrell is, of course, the biggest name that has been linked with a move to France, but the league already possesses some of England’s brightest talents.

One of those is Toulouse’s Jack Willis, who highlighted what an operator he is against Bath on Sunday in the Investec Champions Cup. This led to Dallaglio’s calls for England to change their current policy on TNT Sports after the match, where he said it was an idea that head coach Steve Borthwick supports.

“When you speak to the people at Toulouse, they can’t quite understand why he doesn’t get picked for England more, because they’ve see a real gem in there,” the former England captain said.

“He’s signed for one more year, so he has this season and then up to the end of 2024/25 season.

“I don’t think England have enough quality at the moment to ignore the overseas rule as it is. They’ve got to change it. I know Steve Borthwick wants to change it- he won’t say it publicly but you have to.

ADVERTISEMENT

“We understand why that law was brought in, as why Australia had the Giteau Law, and [Warren] Gatland has Gatland’s Law. The financial landscape of rugby has changed for the foreseeable future in England. I don’t think suddenly there’s going to be a flood of players going over the France or Japan.

“You have to look at that law. With Tom Curry being injured, I don’t think we have anyone with Jack Willis’ skill set in the England squad. I’ve looked at the whole back row, and I know we don’t. So England are missing out on having one of the best flankers, playing for one of the best European teams, why can he not play for England?”

Related

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 2 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

144 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING How the Black Ferns Sevens reacted to Michaela Blyde's code switch Michaela Blyde's NRLW move takes team by surprise
Search