Two years on from the £264m PGP deal, is English rugby on the right path?

This month marks two years since the power brokers of the English game held court at Twickenham, sat in the kind of room where old money swills on Saturdays, and told us they were spending £264m to “reshape the rugby landscape”. The professional game partnership (PGP) between the Rugby Football Union and the Prem clubs was trumpeted as “historic” and would bring “world-leading English teams and thriving professional leagues”. Two years on and with a World Cup 12 months away, would anyone argue we are on the right path to achieving both aims?

Steve Borthwick was absent from Twickenham that day. It felt odd at the time because the most significant aspect of the PGP allows him to award 25 enhanced contracts and assume more control over the selected players. Precisely how much control is a question answered in shades of grey. At the time, an increase at all felt significant, a win for the head coach, but with hindsight, with the clubs still financially weakened by the pandemic, the RFU could have seized far more autonomy.

Instead, the union prioritised modernising the English game in collaboration with the clubs. The upshot has been a vibrant league in which try-fests are 10-a-penny, a formal end to relegation and a move towards a franchise system. There is obvious optimism among Prem executives, most metrics point towards a burgeoning commercial product and it should be said the less flashy aspects of the PGP, such as better aligning the marketing departments, have been effective. In addition, the threat of R360 has been staved off and investment is steadily coming in.

History may eventually show the RFU’s decision to align with, rather than exploit, the clubs was wise. They rely heavily on the £3.3m a year they each receive but if the stream of investment turns into a flood, they will not to the same degree. In turn, the incentive to give greater access to their players will diminish. We are a way off that scenario yet, however, and it does little to help Borthwick plot a course towards next year’s World Cup. Two years on and the Prem appears to be thriving but no one would describe Borthwick’s England as world-leading. The argument goes that the all-singing, all-dancing Prem is not producing battle-hardened Test players.

The next question, then, is whether Borthwick is failing to take advantage of the greater control he has or whether he simply does not have enough. His immediate predecessor, Eddie Jones, adopted a belligerent approach, best summarised as paying little interest to what his players did on club time but fiercely protective over what they did on his. Woe betide anyone who sought to meddle, hence his “Donald Trump of rugby” barb at Bath’s co-owner Bruce Craig.

Borthwick’s approach is different. He is more willing to communicate – “I’ve been here a long time and it has improved out of sight,” says Bristol’s director of rugby (DoR), Pat Lam – but there have been teething problems. If the handling of Immanuel Feyi-Waboso’s shoulder operation last year was a test of the PGP it was a glorious failure. Exeter’s director of rugby, Rob Baxter, talks of “creases to be ironed out” but expresses optimism most of them have been. Matters such as Bath’s Ollie Lawrence turning up to England camp with an injury Borthwick did not know about have at least been left in the past.

Baxter admits to conversations with Borthwick about how many minutes Henry Slade would play in a particular week but the England head coach cannot dictate whether, where and for how long all of his squad appear every weekend. He has the final say on “sport science matters”, which is nebulous, because every selection is based on sport science, but it has come to mean when players will undergo surgery and input into when they take rests.

Directors of rugby are in agreement the real test will come this season with a World Cup on the horizon. “If you’re going to talk about cooperation, pre-planning and organisation of where things go, after these autumn internationals and the period around the Six Nations is the biggest test for it,” says Baxter. “I don’t think there’s a DoR in the country not wondering what’s going to happen post-Six Nations with anyone who has a bit of a niggle that they can play with but needs to be dealt with before the World Cup. That will probably dictate whether there’s a positive or negative feeling about [the PGP].”

Sale’s Alex Sanderson, who in collaboration with England has to micromanage Tom Curry through the season, is of a similar view. “There’ll be stress over maybe four or five players who might need operations. It’ll be a stress but I don’t think it’ll fracture, it’s never going to be: ‘I say jump, you say how high.’. It’s going to be more mature than that.”

For the second year in a row, Borthwick does not have an extra week’s access to his players before the autumn. Instead, he held a mini-camp this month and will hold another in late October but the weekend before England face Australia his players will represent their clubs. For someone who puts so much stock in preparation, it is not ideal.

“I find it easier in the southern hemisphere,” says Leicester’s Geoff Parling, formerly an Australia assistant coach. “You have your players for half a season and then they’re away for half a season. For a player it’s a lot easier to learn everything about that gameplan and then reset. A player here has to learn one game, it could be completely different, then go straight back in and get back up to speed. It’s a big challenge.”

It was one of Jones’s most frequent complaints that his players took too long to get on to the same page because they were coming from different clubs, all with different ways of playing. Listen to England’s attack coach, Lee Blackett, reflecting on recent turbulence and it still seems to be a problem. “We’ve definitely finished campaigns better than we started.”

And what of the players, whose views in this are often overlooked? Those awarded enhanced contracts are guaranteed about £150,000 a year, which is a problem if one of those then promptly agrees a move to Bordeaux, but grants players security that should not be underestimated. Maro Itoje says he was told, rather than asked, to take a much-needed break this summer but having an enhanced contract no doubt made it easier to accept.

Refreshing his captain is one thing, but Borthwick would clearly want even more control over his players. Add to his wishlist more input into law interpretations in the Prem – as the Guardian has reported, he has been successful in that regard for the coming season – and he would dearly like to see fewer blowouts. Indeed, a conversation with Jones, around the time Michael Jordan’s Last Dance documentary was released, comes to mind. “Defence is optional until the playoffs,” was the gist of his view of a franchise system with no relegation – a warning over what the Prem may become. He had a point.

Collaboration with a thinly veiled wariness pervades. More than a truce but not the sunlit uplands either. Clubs are braced for interventions they do not want at pinch points in the season and many feel as if they alone carry the can when players need a rest. The ability of Borthwick – and his head of performance, Phil Morrow – to cultivate relationships with directors of rugby helps, but ultimately circles cannot be squared. At boardroom level clubs are happy the PGP has paved the way for investment, for RFU executives the landscape is modernising and they believe England will at some unspecified point in the future deliver. Through their lens, £264m is money well spent. Through another, however, it is two pence a week, and jam every other day.