Their dud gameplan, their uninspiring coach who is out of his depth and their once classy playing group so uncertain and lost about what they are doing are not a source of joy in which everyone should revel.
This could be the All Blacks at the next World Cup, because everything that has knocked England off their perch, is manifesting in New Zealand.
The All Blacks may well win this World Cup, but that would end up being dangerous, serving only to delude those in power into thinking the wider rugby system is working, when it’s absolutely not.
New Zealand Rugby has big issues and if it looks closely at what’s happened in England and Wales, it should be able to see dangerous signs of the same things starting to happen in its own backyard.
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England were finalists at the 2019 tournament, while Wales made the semis, but four years on, both have arrived in France with the downgraded ambition of simply getting out of their respective pools.
Since the last World Cup, these two nations – absolute heavyweights of the world game and countries that most people would consider “too big to fail” – have endured extensive damage within their respective rugby ecosystems.
England have seen three Premiership clubs go bust since 2020 – the upheaval leading to salary caps being lowered, marquee players leaving for more lucrative markets and the general quality of the league deteriorating.
So too did the Rugby Football Union muddle itself with its high-performance decision-making – opting to keep England coach Eddie Jones in his role after a disastrous 2021 Six Nations and a review that seemed to suggest his regime was untenable, only to then fire him in December last year – just 10 months out from the World Cup.
Wales have undergone a massive governance overhaul after a review found the national body to be riddled with sexism and racism.
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The financial position of the Welsh Rugby Union is dangerously bad, with money so tight that contracted players have all had to accept reduced payments – some so low they have been termed derisory.
Wales also decided to fire their incumbent coach, Wayne Pivac, 10 months out from the World Cup and the financial chaos that has ripped through both nations has come after selling equity stakes in the Six Nations and English Premiership.
What’s alarming, or at least should be, is that there are so many similarities between what’s happened in Wales and England and what is happening in New Zealand.
Since 2020, New Zealand’s club competition – Super Rugby - has been revamped into an inferior high-performance version of its former self.
What’s becoming apparent from the examples of England and Wales, and perhaps Australia, too, is that international players are a product of their club environments.
When a competition lacks quality and intensity, and when it is beset with financial dramas, negative storylines and endless distractions, it depowers the players within it.
There is a link to how far England’s national team has fallen and the chaos within the Premiership.
New Zealand is somehow managing to keep a competitive test team together despite the relative lack of edge and quality within Super Rugby Pacific, but it’s precarious to say the least.
And financial catastrophe may be lurking much nearer than many realise, given there are effectively six teams in New Zealand – Moana Pasifika’s licence is owned by NZR.
The prospect of one club, maybe two, going bust as has been the case in England, can’t be ruled out.
Super Rugby TV audiences were on the rise this year, but attendance continues to fall, and gate money typically accounts for anything up to 40 per cent of each club’s income.
So too did NZR get itself confused about its All Blacks coaching scenario – seemingly losing faith in its own plan six months after settling on it to highlight the lack of high-performance expertise within the national body.
Bad and inconsistent decision-making unsettles players and destabilises international teams and after a time, the whole development pathway collapses – as has happened in Wales.
And of course, New Zealand, just like Wales and England, has accepted private equity investment – which seems to simply encourage executives to spend more on the wrong things and not keep track of what is going out.
But it runs out fast – as England and Wales have discovered and their challenged financial and high-performance status should serve as a warning that no country is too big to fail.
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