Lack of success in Europe shows English club Rugby is in a state of mediocrity

It will be no surprise if Saracens win the Heineken European Champions Cup this season, even if many will have Leinster as favourites. Nevertheless, the pool stages have been disappointing for most English rugby supporters. Saracens may indeed be the only English club in the quarter-finals. Exeter may qualify, but to do so they must beat Munster at Thomond Park in Limerick, probably with a four-try bonus point while denying Munster a losing one. Very few visiting teams leave Thomond Park smiling happily.

Meanwhile the other English clubs in this year’s Heineken have had a miserable time. Bath. Gloucester, Leicester, Newcastle and Wasps have mustered only six wins in the first five rounds of the Cup (and Bath’s sole victory was against Wasps). A succession of bad days at the office? Nothing to worry about? That’s not what Lawrence Dallaglio thinks. Pointing out on the BT Sports Cup round-up programme that Saracens alone have enjoyed European success in the last two or three years, he said that the failure of the English clubs isn’t “a blip”. It shows there is something wrong with the English game.

“Nonsense”, some will say, holding to the belief that the Gallagher English Premiership is the toughest, most demanding domestic league in the world. The standard is so high and the fear of relegation so acute that every game is vital, there are no easy matches, and clubs can’t afford to rest star players. In contrast, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Italian clubs – and now a couple of South African ones – play in a league, the Guinness Pro 14, where there is no relegation and where the strongest clubs like Leinster are so far ahead of some of the weaker brethren that they can afford to practise a policy of rotation, resting stars.

Moreover, in Ireland and Scotland, and to some extent in Wales, players are contracted to the national Union which stipulates how many matches they are allowed to play in succession. So, you find that Ireland and Leinster’s Johnny Sexton clocks up far fewer minutes on the field than Saracens’ and England’s Owen Farrell.

Now much of this is true, and the advantages apparently enjoyed by clubs in the Guinness Pro 14 may explain why there may, after this weekend, be three Irish and two Scottish clubs in the Heineken quarter-final alongside Racing 92 and Toulouse from France and only Saracens from England. Even if one thinks that English rugby might be in a healthier state if the RFU was able to require clubs to rest star players, or if club owners and managements were less selfish and so ready to do this, one has to recognize that, to some extent anyway English  – and perhaps also French – clubs are indeed heavily handicapped in comparison with the clubs  of the so-called Celtic nations when it comes to the Champions Cup – though one might add that Welsh clubs have had a poor time of it this year too.

Fair enough, and yet there are other considerations. The English Premiership may be, as they say, tough and demanding. But how good is the rugby? How good are most of the clubs?  Mayn’t the answer to both these questions be “pretty mediocre”? The Premiership table as it stands after twelve rounds at this mid-season point is revealing. Exeter and Saracens are way-out in front, with 51 and 47 points respectively. Harlequins are third on 33 points, with half-a-dozen clubs snapping at their heels. Indeed, the gap of18 points between Exeter and Harlequins is wider than the gap – 16 points – between Harlequins in third place and Newcastle bottom of the table in twelfth place.

Now every club in the Premiership has good players, very good players and even great ones. But is it possible that there are too many clubs and that talent is therefore spread too thinly? Even posing the question seems bold, or indeed ridiculous. After all there are far more rugby players in England than in Ireland, Wales or Scotland, consequently far more capable of playing high-standard professional rugby. This is surely true and the same may be said of France.

Nevertheless, if you look at the question from a different angle, the suggestion that the spread of talent in England may account for some of the difficulties English clubs now seem to be experiencing in the Champions Cup looks more plausible. If the Champions Cup is a step up from domestic competition, and the International game a higher step, then one sees that the perceived strength of English club rugby may be to some extent a delusion. If you reckon that every country in the Six Nations is likely to have much the same number of players who have played international rugby – and, to go further, have won, say, fifteen or twenty international caps at least – then things do begin to look different.

Over the last three seasons Ireland and England have been the strongest European side. Now the Ireland match-day squad will be drawn from only four clubs – with Connacht having only occasional representation; the English one may be drawn from half-a dozen or more, perhaps even eight or nine. The disparity may be of little significance in the Six Nations; not so in the Champions Cup. Leinster can field a XV, all of whom have international experience -experience of winning for both club and country.

Much the same may be said of Munster, but in England only of Saracens. Admirable and remarkable as Exeter’s success in the Premiership has been, it hasn’t persuaded Eddie Jones to draw heavily on the club. So perhaps one shouldn’t be surprised that Exeter, as Dallaglio and Brian O’Driscoll agreed, are still learning how to win in Europe. Accordingly, too many of the English clubs in the Champions Cup are short of players with experience of winning at the highest level.

Of course, this may be nonsense. Dallaglio may be wrong. This season and last season may be only a blip. It may not be long before there are again three or four English clubs in the last eight. Yet the thought that, except for Saracens and Exeter, the Premiership may be mediocre won’t go away. Looking again at the table, you find that whereas the top two clubs have each won ten matches, no other club has won more than six. Or, to put it another way: the table tells you that, for the moment, Harlequins are the third-best club in England: yet they have won only 50 per cent of their League matches. That looks a bit like a definition of mediocrity.