14 May 22, 2022The Sunday TimesSport Rugby union
Stuart
Barnes
Dull England
need fearless
player like
Arundell to
liven up rigid
running game
around are long gone. Smith is part of
a Harlequins team whose structure
allows players more freedom to make
decisions in the heat of the action.
Still, there is structure.
More responsibility for the
players, less for the coach. And Jones
needs these types because the more
preordained the playing style, the
more important it is to have
individuals capable of breaking out
from a game plan that the opposition
know inside out.
The Brumbies of Jones’s Super
Rugby days had George Gregan and
Stephen Larkham to control the
game, as well as cerebral operators in
the back three like Joe Roff, to do
their own thing. Roff ’s decision to
step off the wing, out of the
Wallabies’ defensive alignment and
intercept Jonny Wilkinson, was the
turning point of the 2001 Lions series
in Australia.
In Ireland, James Lowe is part of
the pattern but he is also free to
roam. One bloke goes off-script andA cameo 20-minute man-of-the-
match display against Wasps was
followed by the try of the season. The
recently whispered-about Henry
Arundell was suddenly being shouted
from the ramparts. The less time on
the field, the bigger the impact. “Cry,
‘God for Harry, England and St
George.’ ”
Admittedly a little way south of
Agincourt, young Henry took the
fight from the bench to the French.
This time France, in the guise of
Toulon, were victorious but the
lasting memory of the match was that
try. Shakespeare could have
riffed a sonnet in appreciation.
It was a thing of beauty. The
selectors from Wales,
Scotland and Cyprus were too
slow off the mark as Eddie
Jones reacted first and called
the former Harrovian into his
squad. But an exploratory 36-
man squad does not bind
him to England. Not until
he is capped will thethreat of the London Irish 19-year-old
turning up in Cardiff, Edinburgh or
Nicosia be neutered.
At under-20 level he stood out; an
English exception in a rugby country
where, until the recent outburst of
ambitious attacking, his bravura was
not the norm. Jones said he liked the
kid’s courage to play his way through
errors. He likened his mindset —
more than playing style — to Matt
Giteau, an all-time Jones favourite.
More than the wonder try on the
Med, it was the manner in which he
reacted to dropping a simple kick,
coming off the bench against Wasps,
that intrigued the England manager.
Instead of going into his shell,
Arundell produced a try-scoring chip
full of class and confidence.
“Positive” was the word used by the
Australian.
A youngster not afraid to give it a
go. This is all well and good but,
under Jones, England have played
like a team terrified of deserting the
game plan. Owen Farrell has been asArundell’s positivity for London
Irish has impressed Eddie Jonesmuch the emissary of Eddie as an
independent thinker. George Ford
slowly settled into the conservatism
that dulled the wits of the England
team. Marcus Smith, much hyped or
the new saviour? He is the face of any
future England ambition. There has
to be a structure, the days of throw-it-L
ast week we expressed grave
doubt that the proposed
Nations Championship, the
new addition to a packed
international programme,
was in any way a good idea. A
convincing majority of
respondents to this
newspaper agreed wholeheartedly.
We also criticised International
Rugby Players (IRP) for not piling in
to defend exhausted members. This
week there is some degree of
comfort. The IRP’s head of player
welfare is Conrad Smith, the great All
Black. If he is half as good in this role
as he was in a wonderful 94-cap
career with New Zealand, which
included two World Cup winners’
medals, then all is not lost.
As Smith says, there are two
priorities for him, which can
sometimes be clashing. There is
danger from injury and exhaustion
on one side, and the need to allow
players freedom to earn on the other.
“You always have to question
yourself in this role,” he said. “Am I
representing the players and their
bests interests around welfare andam I finding that balance between
guys who want to make a living and
want to play this great game, but also
making sure it’s played in the safest
possible manner?” Of our coverage
last week, he says: “Your comments
were spot on.”
He has a group of six in the IRP
working at the heart of the matter
and in close liaison with World
Rugby. The magic number in any
negotiations appears to be 12 — the
number of Tests per year. Smith and
his IRP colleagues speak to the elite
players around the world about their
desires and to the unions about their
demands. It has been generally
recognised that 12 Tests a year
creates some sort of balance.
“We think that 12 a year is about
right,” Smith said. “Then this new
competition would add a final and so
that makes 13, and that is
contentious.” For myself, and if we
are still to regard international rugby
as special, I would not go above ten.
But that cause is long lost.
Smith also points out that elite
players want maximum opportunities
to experience as much as possible.Smith knows how to
balance dangers of
injury and need
to earn money –
players will be
in safe hands
Stephen
Jones
The voice of rugby
“At the moment you have some
French players who have never
played in South Africa, and they
might have played 50 Tests,” he
explained. “Or you have New
Zealanders who have played many
Tests but they’ve never played at
Twickenham.”
He admits that there are glaring
problems in Europe where the
French and English players especially
are employed by their clubs, who
sorely need them in a tough market —
and in the tribal world of European
club rugby, the followers nor the
sponsors nor the directors of rugby
want their players to be away for at
least half the season.
“France, for example, are far from
perfect but have started to limit the
involvement of their players through
a season, they have a guideline of 21
games. That is one way we feel we
can attack the problems but
otherwise it’s tricky for us to do
anything in our position that makes
sense.”
A guideline of 21 games? If you take
away the accepted 12 internationals
per year, that leaves nine games out
of the possible 37 which some French
clubs could play across their
domestic and European
competitions.
Smith does not pretend that
anyone has all the answers.
“So if we all agree to a 12-match
calendar for internationals, what
does that look like? If England were
to make the final [of the new event]
an England player like Owen Farrell
would play four games [in the
autumn]. How is that going to impact
the club because if he’s going to be
playing for Saracens a week later,
that’s when player welfare comes
very much into question.”
Smith’s other great passion is for
rugby to create a valid structure for
all the teams from outside what used
to be called Tier 1 — a goal that the
sport should have set itself more than
35 years ago. Smith and his IRP
colleagues met the “other nations”
recently in London. “The other
teams never know who will play
them long enough in advance —
especially now that they may lose
their games against the Tier 1 teams
in the autumn,” he said.
“They have asked World Rugby to
actually create a competition — so we