England’s most-capped player answered a reader on For The Love Of Rugby and agreed with him: the gap to the Springboks is too big, and a World Cup takes two elite performances in a row. Dan Cole went through the coaching names fans keep suggesting and found nobody.
“England aren’t in that conversation to say that they can win a World Cup.”
Ben Youngs said it on Sunday 13 September, four days after the RFU decided Steve Borthwick would stay in charge past the tournament and its performance director, Conor O’Shea, told the BBC that this England team is “unequivocally one of probably five teams who can win the World Cup next year”.
Youngs won 127 caps, more than anyone who has played for England. Dan Cole won 118. On For The Love Of Rugby, recorded the morning after South Africa beat New Zealand 43-28 in Baltimore, they read out the comments under the Borthwick news. The first said England will never win a World Cup with him in charge. Youngs did not argue with the conclusion. He argued with the reason, and the reason has nothing to do with the coach.
Below: his four-team list, the test he says England keep failing, the coaches Cole crossed off, and the one man Youngs would appoint. The man has a job.
Five teams, says the RFU. Four, says Ben Youngs
O’Shea’s five is the official position, from the performance department that gave Courtney Lawes five weeks and no promises a fortnight ago. Youngs’s list is shorter.
“If I was just [to] take a snapshot with a year out from the World Cup, it’s South Africa, it’s New Zealand, I put France in the mix and I think Ireland on their day are more than capable … They’re the four teams a year out that are the front runners.”
England are not on it. When the reader’s comment came up twenty minutes later, Ben Youngs said so.
“England aren’t in that conversation to say that they can win a World Cup. So I agree with that. Unless we see a real drastic change in the next 12 months in terms of all-court game and being able to compete [with] the Boks. Because right now, we’ve discussed it in the whole episode, the Boks are head and shoulders above a lot of teams.”
“So I agree with that” is the sentence. The reader wanted Borthwick gone. Youngs agreed about the World Cup and said nothing about the coach. A coach can be replaced by November. A gap cannot.
The gap has numbers this year. Last year England won eleven games in a row and still lost the Six Nations. This year they have met three of Youngs’s four and lost all three: 42-21 to Ireland at Allianz Stadium, 48-46 to France on the final weekend, and 45-21 to South Africa at Ellis Park in July.
Two elite performances in a row, and the draw does not help
Youngs’s test is not a one-off game.
“Could they [win] a one-off game? Yeah, of course they could. But in the World Cup we know you got to do it, depending on what side [of the] draw you are. You still got to do it at least twice, two weeks in a row … By the time you get to semis and finals, you’ve got to put two good performances in a row, like elite performances. And I think the gap at the moment is too big.”
The draw agrees with him. England are in Pool F with Wales, Tonga and Zimbabwe, the tournament has a round of 16 for the first time, and the pool is the easy part. Nobody wins a World Cup with a good pool. They win it with a quarter-final and a semi-final in consecutive weeks against sides on Youngs’s list, and the last time England did that was Australia and New Zealand in 2019.
Read also: how England’s central contracts give the RFU control over the players Borthwick picks, which is why the coach was never the union’s only lever.
Cole went through the list. Scott Robertson tried the All Blacks
A second reader posted eleven coaches described as out of contract after the World Cup or uncommitted beyond it. Cole corrected one name on air, and the list is not repeated here because several of the men on it are in jobs. His answer was one word, then an explanation.
“There’s no one on there really that stands out for me, because Scott Robertson, he tried the All Blacks, it didn’t work out. And if it didn’t work out there, where he knows that culture, knows that team, done the Crusaders for ages, I can’t see how that would then work over here. Totally different style and way of playing.”
Robertson left the All Blacks job in January, after a season the site reviewed at the time, and Dave Rennie replaced him in March. Cole’s point is about fit, not ability, and the filter he applied to the rest of the list was the same one.
“I think, England coach, you have to have a knowledge of the Premiership. Even Eddie Jones, he came from Japan, but he had worked in the Premiership, had knowledge of the English game and he had knowledge of the world game … Scott Robertson: I never think England are going to play like New Zealand, because they don’t have the skill set, the culture of those players. So can he adapt? Maybe. But it’s too easy to go, oh, just parachute this person and you make England play like New Zealand. It’s not going to happen.”
Premiership knowledge first. The filter leaves one man, and Youngs named him.
The one name Youngs would pick has already signed for the Waratahs
“If they were to make a change, the person that I would personally go with would be Michael Cheika. I think he would be the perfect fit with a year out from the World Cup. His mentality, the way he sees the game. He knows the Northern Hemisphere. He’s coached over here multiple times. He’d be the person. But look, there’s not going to be any changes.”
Cheika coached Youngs in his final season at Leicester and took the club to the Premiership final. Youngs called him “one of the best coaches I have come across” in an interview with Planet Rugby before that final. The pick is the one name that passes Cole’s Premiership test.
It is also unavailable. Cheika was appointed Waratahs head coach on Wednesday 19 August for next season’s Super Rugby, and starts in Sydney in November once he has coached Lebanon at the Rugby League World Cup. The year England would need him is the year he has given to New South Wales. Youngs did not mention it. His own last sentence had already closed the door.
Cole closed it again.
“The RFU … if they was going to make the change, it would have happened after Six Nations. They haven’t. Therefore I do not see any changes happening before the World Cup.”
Borthwick has won 28 of his 48 Tests, and O’Shea’s reason for keeping him was the simplest one available: “You don’t want them looking for a job going into a World Cup.” The hearing on Youngs’s argument comes in November, all at Allianz Stadium: Australia on Sunday 8 November and Japan a week later, then New Zealand, the second name on his list, on Saturday 21 November.
Read next:
– Steve Hansen and Ewen McKenzie name six reasons the Springboks lead the world, two of which cannot be coached. The gap Youngs is describing, from the other side of it.
– How the series that set the bar finished: 3-1, and nine All Blacks home injured.
Frequently asked
What did Ben Youngs say about England winning the World Cup?
That England “aren’t in that conversation”, that the Springboks are head and shoulders above most teams, and that a World Cup needs two elite performances in consecutive weeks, which he does not think England can currently produce. He named South Africa, New Zealand, France and Ireland as the four front runners a year out.
What did Conor O’Shea say about England’s chances?
The RFU performance director told BBC Rugby Union Weekly on Wednesday 9 September that England are “unequivocally one of probably five teams who can win the World Cup next year”, and that extending Steve Borthwick’s contract stops the coaches looking for jobs during the tournament.
Who do England play before the World Cup?
Australia, Japan and New Zealand at Allianz Stadium on 8, 14 and 21 November in the Nations Championship, then finals weekend. At the World Cup they are in Pool F with Wales, Tonga and Zimbabwe.
Your turn: O’Shea’s five or Youngs’s four?
Two lists, one seat. Either England belong in O’Shea’s five and the Six Nations was a bad spring that a settled coaching staff will fix by Australia, or Youngs’s four is the real conversation and England are not in it until they beat one of those sides twice in a fortnight. Which list is right? Settle it below.
