By Matt Hardy
England under-20 head coach Mark Mapletoft has issued a rallying call to rugby chiefs to recalibrate the game and prioritise pathways to improve the national team when stakeholders decide on the future of the sport.
The Professional Game Agreement was last officially signed eight years ago and is due for renewal in July this year.
Mapletoft, who became under-20 coach in 2023, tells City A.M., though, that key to any new agreement must be grassroots and pathways rugby because without it the professional game and national game will struggle.
What is best practice?
“There’s been a lot written about the Professional Game Agreement moving forward and what that means for the Premiership, England, the Championship, the National League and the U18 Academy League. Ultimately, it presents a really good opportunity to just have a recalibration of what we do and actually what is best practice,” Mapletoft says.
“Within those different components everybody’s fighting their corner, you wouldn’t expect anything less, but we have to make sure that our game nationally is a thriving one and that we’re encouraging boys and girls to get involved in the game, and stay in the game. By keeping more people in the game, we end up with a stronger grassroots game, which then feeds up.
“No player coming out of school in our current model is realistically going to jump straight into a first team match yet so they’re always going to need – whether it’s Super Bucs [university], National League, the Championship – outlets in which to play.”
There have been discussions surrounding a two-tiered, ring-fenced Premiership as well as reports over franchising of academies and removing relegation from the second tier.
But it’s not that simple, Mapletoft suggests, and adds that these stars of the future need places to play, whether that be in the Premiership or lower down in the pyramid.
England needs thriving game
“We need a thriving competitive game. If you are an England under-20 player who’s going to play a large portion of our season, you’re going to play somewhere in around 800 or 900 minutes. You’re probably not going to want to double that, necessarily. If you are, that’s the maximum you want to be playing – the equivalent of 20 matches,” he says.
“If you’re playing 10 games for England, you only need 10 other games at that stage of your development. It’s not that easy to just parachute people into National League clubs, they already have preferred players and I think that’s what people don’t necessarily understand.
“It’s not working but it’s not an exact science; there is no perfect solution to it. All I know is we are producing a lot of very, very good young male players at the minute from the pathway who are being rewarded at senior level.”
Best of the rest?
There’s also a responsibility for the under-18s within Mapletoft’s remit given his pathway role, and there certainly has been an increase in the number of games being played by the age groups.
England are two from two in their under-20s Six Nations campaign after wins in Rome against Italy and in Bath against Wales.
They take on Scotland in Edinburgh next before a home game in Bath against Ireland and a final match in Pau against France.
French and Irish pathways are heralded as the benchmark at the moment but Mapletoft doesn’t necessarily agree.
“People often ask: Aren’t France doing amazingly well, aren’t Ireland doing amazingly well? Well, the last time we played them at U18 level we beat France 41-0 and Ireland 56-14,” he said.
“So if we’re not doing well, they must be wondering what they’re not doing well.”
Tickets for England U20 vs Ireland U20 are available at www.eticketing.co.uk/bathrugby/Events
