International Rugby

Australians may not be confident ahead of the three-test series with England in June, but former Wallaby great Michael Lynagh went into hyperbolic mode when he suggested the Red Rose would whitewash Australia down under.

Lynagh told BBC Sport England's Australian coach Eddie Jones was a key reason for the upturn in England's form: "Eddie's going down there to win the series 3-0 and why not? It's realistic. It's a good squad."

Lynagh is a measured pundit, so his remarks need to be taken seriously, but on this occasion he is very wide of the mark. Much of the fear derives from the Australian sides' poor performances in Super Rugby and the inconsistency of many of Michael Cheika's key men, but there is no way they will lose 3-0.

Australia are too strong at home

Quite simply, it is too improbable for Australia to lose three consecutive home tests against this England team. England have only ever won three tests against Australia in Oz full-stop, and two of those were in 2003, ironically when Jones was coaching the Wallabies. Last time Australia played at home, they beat New Zealand.

Even when the Lions toured in 2013—and were far superior to their hosts—Australia snatched the second test. And it's worth remembering that back in 2013, when the Lions had not won a series for the past three tours, Lynagh was also pessimistically predicting a whitewash to talkSPORT (via the Telegraph).

This Australia team is not unravelling like that Robbie Deans iteration. In November they were runners-up in the World Cup to the greatest rugby team ever.

Australia will galvanise

Australian Super Rugby sides, admittedly, are struggling in 2016. Aside from the Melbourne Rebels, the other four teams have been abject.

As Paul Cully of the Sydney Morning Herald highlighted, statistically, this is the worst set of performances from Australian teams in Super Rugby since 2011. And according to ex-Australia skipper Andrew Slack, speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald's Phil Lutton: "I can't see an obvious answer."

But—and here's the rub; Slack went on to add that wasn't unduly concerned about the Wallabies for the June series: "There are very few sports people that are on-form season after season after season with hardly a gap. There will be a number of Wallabies that will work their way into better form."

Australia will galvanise. Lest we forget, Michael Cheika turned the Wallabies around in one year from the end of 2014 to 2015. He can do so again. Indeed, Cheika is confident enough that, according to Sky Sports, he is considering resting European-based stars such Drew Mitchell, Matt Giteau, Sekope Kepu, Will Genia and Adam Ashley-Cooper to keep them fresh for the Rugby Championship.

England could win, but it would be 2-1

England are improving, no doubt, and in Eddie Jones they have a coach who could mastermind a series win against Australia, but if they do take the spoils, it will be after a hard-fought 2-1 triumph.

The first test is always crucial for any Northern Hemisphere team going south as theoretically it gives the opportunity to catch their hosts, in this case a Wallaby team who have not played since the 2015 Rugby World Cup final on October 31, cold.

And although England play a warm-up fixture against Wales on May 29, their preparations for the June 11 opener are far from ideal. The Premiership final takes place on May 28, so the Wales game is more of an audition than something to plan with, and Jones will only have a full squad together to train for one week ahead of that first encounter with Australia.

If England arrive in Australia relatively injury-free then they might beat the Wallabies. But it would be 2-1. A 3-0 whitewash is out of the question.

England coach Eddie Jones will take 32 players on the summer tour to Australia, and Chris Ashton should be one of them. The question over whether to recall Ashton or pick Wasps flyer Christian Wade is agonisingly difficult, but here I make a pragmatic case for the controversial Saracen.

I expect Jones to take five back-three players down under, and with Anthony Watson, Jack Nowell, Mike Brown and Alex Goode inked-in, there is only space for one specialist winger—a shootout between Ashton and Christian Wade.

The case for Wade

Christian Wade, should anyone need reminding, is simply electric. His two breaks in the European Champions Cup semi-final, the first of which led to Dan Robson’s try, were breathtaking. He links well with the rest of the back three, and his understanding of the game is increasing with experience. He has wonder-try potential.

The Guardian’s Robert Kitson makes the case convincingly:

In some countries there is little doubt Wade would already be a Test fixture. Imagine him on the wing for, say, Scotland or France? Yes, there would be those who would advocate sending a couple of hard-nut enforcers down his flank but that never seemed to bother Shane Williams unduly. Not since the mercurial Shane has British and Irish rugby had a more jet-heeled finisher.

Wade’s defence is no worse than Ashton’s, either, but it’s his ability to take the high ball (he is only 5'8"  after all) that worries me. Should Wade be selected, a glaring mismatch with Wallaby full-back Israel Folau on a cross-field kick would surely beckon (remember Lote Tuqiri on Jason Robinson in the 2003 World Cup final). The counter-case for the slender speedster is Robinson's fine finish in the same match.

The case for Ashton

Chris Ashton is a big-match player. As per the Guardian, Ashton has crossed the whitewash 31 times in 48 European appearances. For England, he has 19 in 39, per ESPN Scrum. Ashton is more of a modern winger than Wade. He has a good all-round kicking game, including an excellent grubber and chase.

Ashton should go to Australia because I anticipate Owen Farrell starting at fly-half for England with Manu Tuilagi playing at inside centre. From playing together at Saracens, Ashton has a good understanding with the No. 10, meaning his trademark support lines are even more effective because he can read what Farrell is planning.

Farrell himself is developing much more of an offensive game this season, giving nice reverse passes and putting teammates into space. England could profit from such Farrell-Ashton combinations.

Eddie Jones has showed himself to trust and bring the best out of England’s pricklier players. He made Dylan Hartley captain, and Owen Farrell a deputy. In terms of discipline, Hartley was exemplary during the Six Nations. Ashton himself missed the tournament because of a lengthy ban, but the England coach should be backed to curb Ashton’s penchant for stupidity.

After Ashton was involved in the aftermath of the incident that saw England rival Anthony Watson of Bath red-carded for an aerial challenge on Alex Goode, Jones was quick to admonish the winger, as per the Daily Mail: “I didn’t like what Ashton did. I thought it was unsportsmanlike, and that is something he needs to get out of his game.” I think Jones commands enough respect for Ashton to get the message.

So Ashton gets the recall, only just, and for pragmatic reasons. Should George Ford be in better form by the autumn internationals and be installed as the first-choice fly-half, then it would be very hard to ignore Wade. But for now, the team setup calls for Ashton.

Ashton, though, is not in a strong enough position to oust the incumbent England wings, Nowell and Watson, from the starting lineup; they offer a more rounded skill set and have been consistently excellent this term. But although the rugby romantic in me is longing for Wade to be picked for England, Eddie Jones should instead take Ashton to Australia.

Christian Wade hit the headlines last weekend with a six-try performance against Worcester that rocketed the Wasps man to second in this season's leading try-scorer table in the Aviva Premiership.

The 24-year-old is enjoying life as part of a resurgent Wasps, who have reached the last four of Europe's premier club competition for the first time since 2007, and they are second in their domestic competition and on course for a play-off berth.

It usually follows that players in a successful side start to pique the interest of the national selectors, and Wasps have plenty of Englishmen Eddie Jones can call upon. Indeed, James Haskell, Joe Launchbury and Elliot Daly were all part of the Red Rose's Grand Slam squad.

But Wade was overlooked. The former RGS High Wycombe pupil has not had much luck when it comes to England honours.

He was due to play in the 2013 autumn internationals before a hamstring injury intervened, then he was ruled out for six months that December with a foot problem, per the Telegraph.

Other players took their chances in his absence, and in 2015 he was overlooked by Stuart Lancaster, not even making the original 50-man pre-World Cup party. Later that year, he was struck down with another foot injury that sidelined him for part of this season.

Now he is clearly fit and currently firing on all cylinders. But rather than take the chance to demand his form merits selection for England's tour of Australia, Wade has been talking up his prospects of heading to Rio to play in the Olympic Sevens tournament, per the Guardian:

An Olympic medal is one of the highest honours for anyone. You would be representing Great Britain and a medal would just be massive, something you can hold on to and be proud of. There will be millions of viewers watching ... it is probably the ultimate stage.

Except it's not, is it?

How many players have genuinely used Sevens as a springboard to success in the 15-man game? Sevens, with its own world series and increased sponsorship revenues and TV coverage, has been attracting players who specialise in the short form of the game.

But in the case of England, these are players without much chance of full 15-a-side recognition.

Ben Gollings, Chris Cracknell, Simon Amor—to name three—carved out excellent Sevens careers, but no one suggested their performances in that version of the game would somehow catapult them into the full England team.

And that's why Wade's reported attraction to this year's Olympic competition feels like a backward step, almost the easy route to international recognition—which it certainly is not when you consider how fit those players have to be—almost a signal of resignation that his 15s chances are too slim to pursue with any great vigour.

Surely a 24-year old in his sort of form should be using interviews like that to push claims for a place on the plane to Australia, where he can work each day under the eyes of Jones and his coaching staff to prove himself worthy of a shot.

Eddie Jones is clearly watching his men, but he will also be listening. Does Wade's soundbite paint him as a young man desperate to break into a winning England team?

Has Wade begun to believe the opinions formed about him in the media? Namely that, as an attacker, he is harder to handle than a live grenade, but his defending leaves room for improvement. He hinted at these weaknesses back in 2014 in the piece in the Mirror:

I can't just rely on scoring tries. Our main job as wingers is to finish off tries and also get over the gainline and that is something I've always done. But I also have to have the right defensive mindset: to be good at defending at the wide breakdowns, the high balls and the kick-chase. I have to keep working on my strengths as well as on my weaknesses.

What we should be hearing from him is that yes, he is small, and perhaps a big brute or two might batter him now and then, but there ain't no one who can run and dance and jink like he can. Not since Shane Williams hung up his boots. How many pundits picked on the Welshman for the odd defensive lapse?

Again in the Guardian, Rob Kitson, who would have no problem if Wade were to go to Rio, bemoans the culture of safety first that has perhaps played a part in the fact Wade has just the one full cap to his name:

Top-class rugby players also need to defend. But do people sit down, 25 years on, and marvel at the tackling of David Campese or Jonathan Davies? How come Nehe Milner-Scudder was among the stars of the last World Cup? As with Wade, the New Zealander is no giant but possesses the pace and ability to make defenders look silly in alternative ways.

There has so far been no call to Wade for the Olympic GB squad, but if there were one, he should turn it down. He has a Premiership title and European Cup to help his club side to win, and what he should be focused on is slaughtering defenders in front of him in those key games coming up to force Eddie Jones to pick him.

Running around in the Sevens arena will teach us nothing about Christian Wade, and it will teach him nothing about becoming a 15-a-side international wing.

A few weeks in Australia will do both.

Substitutions, or rather, reducing them is the rule change the rugby world needs most. World Rugby, the sport's international governing body, currently permits teams to select eight players on the substitutes' bench. But the expansion of substitutes has had several major negative knock-on effects on rugby—both as a spectacle and for the players themselves.

The most important benefits of limiting the number of new players who can take to the field are seeing more skilful rugby and fewer injuries. As a result, it is time for World Rugby to reduce the number of interchanges to five.

Rugby is currently a 23-person game, but is it right that coaches can change over half the team? Limiting them to five substitutions would mean all the players would need to be fitter and faster and less reliant on muscle power as they are likely to have to play a full 80 minutes. This would in turn lead to a greater focus on skills over brawn, making for a better spectacle.

That said, I don't go as far as Mick Cleary who, writing in the Daily Telegraph, argues: "It is not a 23-man game. Rugby union is a 15-man game, and many of us wish to the high heavens that it would revert to it." Nonetheless, he is right that the current state of affairs is damaging rugby.

More Interesting Substitutions

Coaches could still pick eight players on the bench, from which to choose five, and this would make substitutions far more interesting. With more variables, it would be more tactically demanding for the coaches and would provide greater debate for fans as to how the substitutes should be deployed.

Coaches may still pick a beefy player for 50 minutes of a game, for example a Will Skelton, but they will know they will have to use one of their precious substitutions on replacing him because the rule change would mean if such players don't slim down, they run the risk of being picked off by nimble opponents in the final quarter of the match, leading to more tries and greater entertainment.

Player Safety

The other pivotal improvement would be in player safety. Even with increases in awareness and teams reporting concussions, is it any wonder they are on the rise when we look at the size of the modern player? Collisions are brutal, often comparable to car crashes. If we want our kids to safely play the game we love, we need to acknowledge and act upon its risks.

Needless to say, lower-impact collisions as a result of lighter players also means fans would see more of the star players, who would spend less time on the treatment table.

This suggestion also has the benefit of maintaining the mantra that rugby is a game for "all shapes and sizes." As the England's Rugby Basics site notes:

Rugby union is a territorial, full-contact, team game, inclusive of all shapes and sizes, where 20-stone bulldozers are valued just as highly as small, pacy whippets. It is hard to imagine another British sport where 245lb prop Jason Leonard could stand in a World Cup-winning team alongside 5ft 8in wing Jason Robinson.

Make 80 Minutes Mean 80 Minutes

The alternative solution to stop the exponential rise of giants in rugby, which is undermining the principle of a game for all physiques, is to make the 80-minute match 80 minutes of the ball in play, as in basketball.

This would mean players would have to be a lot fitter, but it would make the game last a lot longer and more unpredictably, which may put off fans and television. Reducing substitutions to five would be more effective.

But What Would Happen When a Team Has Used Up All of Their Substitutions and Suffers an Injury?

Here there are two options for World Rugby. The first is to allow a substitution to take place if an independent medical examination (as now happens with concussions) verfies the injury. The second is to not allow coaches more than five changes full-stop. So if a player has to leave the field through injury, his team would have to play with 14 men.

The latter approach is favourable because, as argued above, it would make more interesting demands on the coaches, who would have to take injuries into consideration.

This would help to avoid a repeat of the "Bloodgate scandal"—when Harlequins feigned an injury to winger Tom Williams in the final minutes of a Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster so that substituted goalkicker Nick Evans could return to the fray.

Without question, then, World Rugby, for the widespread benefits it would have on the sport for players and fans alike, should limit substitutions to five per game.