England reached the final of the last rugby world cup (lost to South Africa), and it wasn't that long ago that their clubs dominated European competitions. The Saracens, before being punished for violating the salary cap, won the Heineken Cup three times between 2016 and 2019, and reached the semi-finals every year but one between 2013 and 2020, when Exeter were champions. A show of power.
But now it is another rooster that sings. As if finishing fifth and third in the last two editions of the Six Nations wasn't humiliation enough, England will have no representatives at the European finals in Marseille, the equivalent of the Champions League and Europa League in football. Three French teams (La Rochelle, Lyon and Toulon) and one Irish team (Leinster) will be the protagonists.
English rugby has been the victim in the last couple of years of an austerity policy exacerbated by the covid, which has reduced the salary cap to 5.5 million euros, while in Ireland it is just over seven million, and in France , half past nine. The other big factor is an enormous presence of foreign players (some very good, others from the crowd) that takes away opportunities from youngsters and slows down their development, as is the case of Raffi Quirke in the Sharks de Sale, where Faf de Klerk, from undisputed quality, is the headline (the whole of Manchester's suburbs has been likened to a South African retirement community).
At the national team level, Australian coach Eddie Jones' tactics and confrontational style can be questioned, with many enemies in the press and also among the players for his lack of a left hand and the constant tension it creates. But at the club level, these are more structural problems. Ireland has three teams with the potential to be European champions (Leinster, Munster and Ulster) and France has half a dozen. England, with none.
Both on the other side of the English Channel and on the other side of the Irish Sea there is greater coordination between the two levels of rugby, national team and clubs, and the latter give priority to those players with the ability to wear the national shirt. Foreigners are recruited more carefully, and not only for their sporting qualities, but also for their ability to integrate into the community and contribute on a cultural level, as is the case of New Zealander James Lowe (one of Leinster's stars, like the Argentine Felipe Contepomi), South African Damian de Allende in Munster (where he has followed in the footsteps of Christian Cullen), and Springbok Duane Vermeulen in Ulster. The same in France, where Finn Russell (Racing 92), the brothers Arnold (Toulouse) and Ronan O'Gara (La Rochelle) help the evolution of future stars instead of blocking their path.
In France, rugby has always emphasized the notions of identity and community (just look at the atmosphere at the Stade Mayol in Toulon or the Parc des Sports d'Aguilera in Biarritz), and has an organization chart with three professional divisions . The Irish teams, representing the different counties, have such a large and quality bench that it gives them an advantage over anyone, as was shown in the semi-final between Leinster and La Rochelle.
In rugby, in addition to individual quality and collective organization, it is very important to have your own style, such as the brute force of the Springboks or the speed of the All Blacks. And right now English lacks a philosophy. It is not Stoic, nor empirical, neither existentialist nor nihilist. It is neither Seneca, nor Hegel, nor Nietzsche, nor even Kierkegaard.
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