Leone Nakarawa has already made a formidable case to break the sequence judging by his performance against Leicester but it is a feather in the cap that the last five European players of the year are English. It will please the Rugby Football Union that among them are Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje – acclaimed for Saracens’ success in the last two seasons – but go back a little further and there is cause for embarrassment at Twickenham.
The three previous winners were Jonny Wilkinson, Steffon Armitage and Nick Abendanon – the last for his exploits for Clermont, the former two for Toulon. In other words for 36 months the best player in Europe was not able to play for England, “exceptional circumstances” aside, even if Wilkinson had retired from international rugby by then.
The debate over the two most infuriating words in the rugby lexicon is not a new one but Ryan Lamb’s assertion last week that England prefer “robots” and his performance for La Rochelle on Saturday give reason to revisit it. Lamb emerged as a mercurial fly-half as a teenager at Gloucester but, after mixed spells at London Irish, Leicester, Northampton and Worcester, he has slipped the straitjacket and found a new lease of life in south-west France.
He has always wanted to play with a certain joie de vivre and La Rochelle are like-minded. It is a perfect fit, regardless of the fact that he will make a few mistakes along the way, and La Rochelle’s swashbuckling 34-27 win at Harlequins was an apt demonstration of that.
Toulon’s Chris Ashton and David Strettle of Clermont were other Englishmen abroad on winning teams over the weekend and, while both were on the international periphery before their moves, their Saracens form was not in doubt. For Lamb, however, as was the case with Wilkinson, Armitage and Abendanon, a move to France has been restorative. Lamb’s England chances had long since vanished but he is evidence of the advantages of broadening horizons.
Lamb’s former Northampton team-mate Christian Day has spoken a lot recently in his role as Rugby Players’ Association chairman and has proved himself articulate throughout. His entertaining column last week on his spell for Stade Français is well worth a read and he concludes: “Without my time in France I would undoubtedly have given up on the game that I loved and would be sat wearing an expensive suit in an office. It was a breath of fresh air that made me realise how much I loved having the sport in my life. There is so much out there in the world to see and do.”
English players moving overseas remains a taboo, however – it is a delicious irony that the RFU has often cited the importance of having a national coach with experience abroad – but take Carl Fearns, who moved to Lyon in 2015 and was last season nominated for the Top 14’s player of the year award. He has just suffered a long-term knee injury and he will not play again this season but, beforehand, he had helped guide them to the top of the Top 14 table. The chances of England selecting players based abroad remains nil – Fearns is exploring the possibility of playing for France – and we are unlikely ever to find out precisely what constitutes exceptional, save for Rob Andrew’s next book perhaps.The Premiership clubs fear a player exodus but the present situation is not exactly ideal.
There are not so many headline acts in the Premiership this season; no Kurtley Beale, Charles Piutau or Louis Picamoles and it is, in part, because their arrival in the first place has driven up wage demands across the board, particularly among English players. It has left injury-hit Wasps with a threadbare squad – ultimately exposed by Ulster on Friday – while apart from Liam Williams, the most high-profile summer moves were both to Leicester with George Ford and Jonny May arriving. As a result there was less money to spend on a pack in need of reinforcement and, while there was no lack of effort from Leicester against Racing, the French side were simply too powerful up front and had the spellbinding lock Nakarawa on top form to boot.
On the topic of the remarkable Fijian, Sir Clive Woodward recently suggested that the New Zealand pair Sam Whitelock and Brodie Retallick would walk into Eddie Jones’ team despite England’s abundance of second-rows. If that is the case, Nakarawa would do so at a stroll but it continues to grate that he would have to move clubs first.
