Re: The Structure of the English Competition

Ian Diddams wrote:

> The Green Phantom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > Ian Diddams wrote:
> >
> <snip>
> > It doesn't take away from what CW and his team have achieved either, in
> > fact, in my view, it reinforces my argument.  The cream has been forced to
> > the top.
>
> Forced?  No...  I don't buy that.  Risen ...  maybe.  If Leonard had
> been content plying his trade at Barking and staying with his mates he
> wouldn't be playing for England with 113 caps to his name.  He only
> acheived that because he was hungry enough to go and find a club at
> which he could perform at a higher level - did harlequins scout in
> Essex and find him, or did he apply to Quins to play?
>

Well, Jase is a classic yet current example of what happened 4 RWCs ago during the 
amateur era.  Moved from
Barking around the North Circular to Saracens.  Try your hand with a London Merit 
Table/Senior Club/Courage
League or whatever it was called back then [!] Saracens were the Cinderella club of 
London rugby.  Gets his
name in the papers, starts to play for the London Division, gets into the England 
squad to tour Argentina
sometime around 1990? with the other hopefuls and *bang* on the flight home he steps 
off the plane a
Harlequin.  Now what was the pyramid in that?  Did Essex clubs feed Saracens in an ad 
hoc way back then?  I
think they did.  Ben Clark was another who went from Southend? to Saracens to Bath to 
England.  Mickey
Skinner went from Blaydon to Blackheath to Harlequins to England.  Paul Ackford had 
piddled around with
Rosslyn Park to Metropolitan Police to Harlequins to England to Lions to The Daily 
Telegraph.  There was
definitely a fast track to a cap - but it had nothing to do with any *central 
planning* from the RFU.  It
just sort of happened through the Old Boy Network.

>
> In short, the "cream" is at the top because on the whole it has chosen
> to be there.  The system does _not_ get good players to the top just
> be dint of them being good players.  There will be no more Wade
> Dooleys.

Agreed.  It is just not going to happen.

>
>
> Compare the above to (say) the traditional NPC system.  Clubs had/have
> a hierarchy as explained above as exists in England also.  So a club's
> better players get selected for the 1st team...  which are seen by the
> provinvial selectors, and selected for province ...  they don;t ask
> anyone, they don;t apply to play....  they get approached by the next
> level.  AB selectors then repeat the process watching the NPC players.
>  Thus test players genuinely rise to the top.  Yes - they must still
> "want" to do it agreed...  someone that wants to stay in the 2nd XV
> with his mates won;t rise, nor will anybody that tunrs down the
> representative opportunities.  But on the whole players rise through
> the pyramid because the pyramid actively drwas from levels below it.
>
> Compare that to the English pyramid.  Yes - I accept the pyramid DOES
> exist.  And yes, players rise through it, albeit for differing
> reasons.  But it is not a pyramid that FORCES players anywhere - the
> NZ pyramid doesn't acheive that either, although maybe it "squeezes"
> players there ;-)
>
> The above is diverging a little anyway.  The main point is this
> pyramid and where its effective base is.  maybe its level 4.  maybe
> level 5.  But even allowing for the little trickles, I just cannot
> accept that level 12 players are genuinely contributing to some
> symbiotic being that is sqeezing the best players into the ZP and thus
> national squads.  If you removed levels 6 and below I seriously doubt
> it would affect the England team whatsoever.  THAT's why I decry the
> numbers game.

Agreed.  But the point here Didds is that National League 3N&S being played today, is 
about the same standard
as the Senior Clubs say around the time of RWC91 in the old Amateur era.  Players who 
take it seriously,
train two nights a week with their Club and what else they can fit in during lunch 
time at work, give it a
lash each Saturday.  Rosslyn Park for example just never evolved, stayed the same, 
meanwhile the likes of
Wasps and London Irish grew, changed and adapted with Professional times - as painful 
a transition as it
became.  Therefore, some of the SH observers asking *how did England do that?*  most 
probably can't grasp
that the club game in England has moved up a notch which each RWC.  An English ZP 
*Club* is now about as
strong as a S12 franchise.  It must be, because England just won RWC03.

>
>
> didds




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One must change one`s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's 
superiority.
--Napoleon Bonaparte