Posted by By Ben Sturnham
After two tough away outings in the British and Irish Cup competition, Bristol I am sure, will be very happy with their respective performances.
To win at the Knoll two weeks ago, with such a young average age, was a great achievement.
Munster – arguably the most successful European team of recent times – also struggled to dispose of Bristol’s exuberant youth last weekend.
Overall, Bristol have enjoyed a very productive and satisfying fourteen days, with the added benefit of Lee Robinson and Ross Johnson returning to fitness.
On the other hand, if you are an England supporter, the last three weeks can only be described as disastrous. Three autumn internationals and only one try scored. What’s going wrong…?
Josh Lewsey, former England World Cup winner, was recently very outspoken in the media with his open criticism of England and in particular some of the coaching staff. After watching the international games unfold it’s easy to see his frustrations, and every passionate supporter should be questioning the England team selection and playing philosophy.
With the exception of Lewis Moody who has been in outstanding form, why are there so many Leicester players involved in the set-up? It is not like Leicester are dominating the Premiership this season.
Another pressing question that everyone is asking is how long will Martin Johnson stick with current captain Steve Borthwick? There is no doubt that Borthwick is a great student of the game and a tremendous Premiership player, but this does not necessarily cut it at international level.
With reference to the coaching staff, why are we employing Brian Smith, a South African as our attack coach? Clive Woodward employed John Mitchell, a New Zealander, in the late nineties with equally poor results.
Fundamentally, I feel that it is a flawed philosophy to look abroad and it irritates me as an Englishman that we are going down this route again. Can anybody name the last English coach of Australia, New Zealand or South Africa?
Facts and figures speak for themselves – England have plummeted down the IRB world rankings from number one in 2003 to an lowly sixth in 2009, and it was an embarrassing eighth at one stage. We have a success rate of 45% in international games since 2003 and under Johnson the reading does not improve. On current form, England will struggle to finish fourth in the upcoming Six Nations and this is simply not good enough with the immense resources at our disposal.
Add to this, that the top English Premiership Club is predominantly South African and most National League Teams are in financial disarray, it is utterly depressing for all English rugby supporters alike.
Only today, Bristol24-7 has learned that Coventry have gone into immediate liquidation. That is the third Championship Club to blow up and I’m sure everyone is curious about what the National Governing Body is going to do about it.
In the interim, everyone will have to do the best they can on diminishing budgets and some unfortunate players will have to seek alternative employment.
Bristol will have no sympathy for Birmingham, in the build up to this weekend’s league game at the Memorial Stadium. It will be business as usual and I expect the scoreline to be significantly bigger than last time the two sides met.
Ben Sturnham is a former Bristol and England forward, now writing exclusively for Bristol24-7
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