Why Eddie Jones Was Right to Accept England’s Eligibility Rule

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: November 26, 2015

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One of the major elephants in the room was cornered, captured and chased out no sooner had Eddie Jones taken his seat at his first press conference as England’s head coach.

The Australian, who watched his own country ascend to the final of the 2015 Rugby World Cup after tossing out their rule not to select overseas players, told the assembled media that he would abide by the same regulation in England.

Per Sachin Nakrani of the Guardian, Jones said:


Sometimes you see things differently when you’re on the outside ... I want players who want to play for England and if you want to play for England you have to play in the Premiership. I’m happy with that.

The RFU’s stance, to recap, is to allow their head coach only to select players plying their trade outside the English system if he can demonstrate that exceptional circumstances make it necessary.



This caused much controversy for Stuart Lancaster as first Steffon Armitage and then Nick Abendanon scooped the 2014 and 2015 European Player of the Year gongs and yet remained persona non grata due to their employment by French clubs.

There were good tactical reasons for picking Armitage, but given that Lancaster did not seem to favour the kind of game that suits the former London Irish man’s particular skill set, they were null and void as far as "exceptional circumstances" go.

Indeed, Armitage was on the verge of joining Bath for the very purpose of making himself available for England back in 2014, per BBC Sport, but that deal never came off.

It demonstrates, though, that if a player thinks he is in with a shout of playing for England, he knows where he needs to be.

Former England international Brian Moore took this stance in his column for the Telegraph in May 2014:

There is a simple solution—if Armitage truly wants to play for England above ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Rugby Union

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