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The RFU rule Mike Tindall would happily bin to make England better
By Liam Heagney
England Rugby World Cup winner Mike Tindall has claimed the RFU must rethink its approach and allow Test-level players who are based outside of the Gallagher Premiership to be made eligible for selection.
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Head coach Steve Borthwick is heading into the start of the 2024 Guinness Six Nations unable to select four players who were part of the England squad at the recent Rugby World Cup as they are playing their club rugby in France.
The Toulouse-based Jack Willis, Toulon’s David Ribbans, Stade Francais’ Joe Marchant and Racing 92’s Henry Arundell have all missed out on getting picked by Borthwick due to earning their living outside of the Premiership – and more players are set to join them across the Channel in 2024/25 and make themselves Test-selection ineligible.
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It’s red tape that Tindall, the 2003 World Cup-winning midfielder, wants scrapping as quickly as possible. “There is a big thing with England at the moment about trying to protect the Premiership but I’m sort of the other side (of the argument),” he told In The Zone, the Gambling Zone podcast series.
“For years, the Premiership has paid other nations to house their great players. Faf de Klerk, Lood de Jager. A lot of South Africans have come and played in this league and then gone back and won World Cups and they are bringing up the next generation of players.
“I have got no issues with English players going away and other people paying their salaries and then coming back and playing for their country,
“I would get rid of it at the moment just because of where we are salary cap-wise. You could get paid well to play in this country (before the cut)… That’s the thing we have got wrong, we have got to find a way so that even a club like Newcastle can become an attractive place to go and play.
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“We need to guarantee they can get 10,000 fans through the turnstiles and at the moment we can’t do that with the way the league is set up but yet we drag our feet with his we should change things to make it better.
“There are things coming in from what I am hearing about trying to move things forward… but the rugby cog turns very slowly and we missed out on a chance during covid to change it fast and dramatically and it would have created a lot of interest.”
Tindall added: “We are playing catch up. Rugby is a game built on tradition and we love that tradition, but some of those traditions should go. How long ago did Will Carling have his moment with the committee and has that really changed? I don’t think it has.
“I don’t think we have anyone who is driving severe change but if someone does come in they normally don’t get anywhere because people don’t want to do they change. If we want rugby to survive, we have to flip it completely on its head.
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“If you look at every major sport, the club game drives everything. However, international rugby drives the sport, not club rugby. It’s the wrong way around. You have got the third biggest global sporting event in the Rugby World Cup, which is massive.”
