Twickenham steps in to clip Rowell's wings

Rugby Union

The England team - remember them? - have seemed largely forgotten while the Rugby Football Union and its senior clubs have been protractedly sorting out their differences but it emerged at the weekend, coincidentally in the wake of the clubs/union peace-in-our-time, that Jack Rowell has had his wings clipped.

And his centres and No 8. Not only will the England manager be restricted to a more identifiably coaching role next season, but he has been informed by an unimpressed RFU national playing committee that now is the time to discard the remains of the thirtysomething generation who have served England so well over recent years.

That appears likely to mean an end to the international careers of Will Carling, who has already stood down after eight years as England captain, Jeremy Guscott, Rory Underwood and the man Rowell last season found he could not do without, Dean Richards.

This is the thanks Rowell is getting for coaching England to a Grand Slam and the World Cup semi-final in 1995 and the Triple Crown in '96, but the committee's intention is that England more obviously proceed with putting in place the players who will play in the 1999 World Cup. Rowell has reportedly been told to have at least 20 of the eventual 26 in place by this time next year.

Despite England's domestic success the committee, which is chaired by a long-ago chairman of selectors, Derek Morgan, are critical of England's - and Rowell's - inability to generate a fluid style to match their rhetoric, though the manager has consistently complained that the climate and club- centric character of English rugby are not conducive to making this breakthrough.

Now that the clubs and RFU have reached their historic compromise, with the First and Second Division clubs in membership of English Professional Clubs winning on nearly every point, it will not be any easier. The one concession of significance made by the clubs was to agree to not less than seven or more than eight weekends per season devoted to international and representative rugby.

This sounds fine but takes no account of the vastly increased number of club matches in which the players will as professionals have to be involved - an overkill of which Rowell incessantly complained even under the old, less stringent regime. The clubs agreed their quid pro quo for being allowed to run their own affairs and receive the monies from their own competitions, but the potential for future club-v-country conflict remains undiminished.