Clubhouse chat - English rugby 'crying out for alignment'...

'Young players don't play enough'

While limiting game time for senior England internationals has long been a thorny issue for the sport's administrators, at the other end of the spectrum are the young players who are not playing enough.

"One of the biggest problems is game time for these players," said McCall. "I don't think someone has a masterplan as to how these young players play an appropriate level of rugby.

"I think there are too many of them not playing. We need to find a way to give them more rugby."

Dowson said: "There is no coherent structure within the game for development guys coming out of school and coming into professional rugby.

"Some sides do it through A leagues, some sides through a loan club - we have a great relationship with Bedford in the Championship.

"There are loads of different ways of doing it but there is not one pathway which works and develops guys to play for the club and then to go on and play for England."

McCall agrees.

"As Phil said, it's every man for himself at the moment," he added.

"Every club unilaterally decides what they think is the best for them and then it is probably a diluted version of what you want anyway. But there has to be a coherent plan across the clubs, the same plan.

"I think the RFU need to get on top of that. The current system is far from perfect. [We need] someone with a masterplan. The [French] Top 14 seems to be absolutely booming but underneath that there is a pathway for their younger players.

"But it wasn't like that five or six years ago. Someone, or some people, got it together and aligned everything and I think we are crying out for that to happen."

Wigglesworth, who is joining Steve Borthwick's England set-up next month, said: "You need to ask Alex Sanderson what he is doing at Sale; you need to ask Mark McCall, who has developed however many England internationals, what is the best way of doing it.

"If Mark is saying they are not getting enough rugby, then they are definitely not getting enough rugby.

"He has seen it for so many years and what works and what the challenges are that we need to tap into that knowledge and get a proper system for these youngsters coming through."