Six Nations: The school divide behind England's rugby team
2025-02-14
Category: sports

Jamie George and Ellis Genge have played together for England 57 times.As hooker and loose-head prop, they pack down together.They stand alongside each other when the anthems are sung.They even work together on the board of a players' union, representing the England team in their discussions with the Rugby Football Union and commercial partners.The routes they have taken to this point are markedly different though.George's parents were teachers. He grew up living on site at Haileybury, a private school in Hertfordshire."I was very lucky," he says. "My back garden was Haileybury College, an absolutely beautiful school with acres of playing fields."I don't think it could have been a better environment to grow up in when I inevitably became a professional rugby player."It wasn't inevitable that Genge would become a professional rugby player.  The teachers at John Cabot Academy - his state secondary school in Bristol - encouraged his rugby. But it wasn't Haileybury.There weren't former Test players as coaches, or strength and conditioning staff, or an extensive fixture list against other rugby-focused schools.Most of all, there wasn't the time."The rugby programme isn't well put together compared to private schools - it might be 30 minutes on a Tuesday as part of PE," he says."I don't think you can hide away from that."
In 2019,  social mobility think tank the Sutton Trust analysed the background of Genge, George and their England team-mates., externalIt found that 44% of the England team had, like George, been to fee-paying schools, with the same proportion in the state sector and the rest educated overseas.Little has changed since. If anything, the trend has become more pronounced.Of the 23-strong squad picked to face France last weekend, 13 attended private schools.Only 7% of children in England are educated privately, but all budding Georges and Genges, on either side of the divide, know the differences that come with fees.You can see it most starkly every October in Ipswich.For 39 years, St Joseph's College, an independent school on the outskirts of the town, has organised a rugby festival.Over those years, it has grown in prestige.Future England internationals Marcus Smith, Zach Mercer, Jonathan Joseph and Lewis Ludlam are among those to have won the player of the tournament award. Chris Robshaw, Mako Vunipola, Mike Tindall and Christian Wade have also trod the turf.Streamed online, played in front of hundreds of spectators, it is now perhaps the most sought-after date in the schoolboy rugby calendar.Back in 1986, the invitees for the inaugural event came from both the state and private sectors. Increasingly that has become untenable.This year, Royal Grammar School High Wycombe was the only state school among the 16 competing for the showpiece under-18 title."It is not intentional, it almost organically happens that way because of the resources these schools have," says St Joseph's director of sport, Fred Wenham, who must ensure a competitive card for the festival.It is obvious as soon as the teams step off the bus.The vast majority of head coaches who arrive at the festival are recently retired professional players. St Joseph's have recruited Northampton stalwart Mike Haywood to their own staff.His pupils play on immaculate pitches, train in a state-of-the-art gym, review their performance via video analysis, have their sleep and wellbeing tracked, their biometric markers monitored and their nutrition planned out.
Perhaps most importantly, there is a huge cultural weight placed on rugby.St Joseph's first team are presented with their festival shirts at a special assembly before singing, some in tears, to the rest of the school."It really is as close as you can get to a professional experience or lifestyle, without actually being paid for it," says Wenham.The RFU has a network of rugby managers to try to embed the game in state schools.Sixteen of the best compete in the ACE (Academy, Colleges and Education) League. England internationals George Martin, Joe Heyes and Harry Randall all rose up through that route.But, those institutions are thinly spread and tight on resources.Private schools, where fees can exceed Â£50,000 a year, will always have more to invest.They are not entirely closed shops, however. You can attend, even if you can't pay.Because top rugby-playing private schools don't just spend on facilities, they also invest in talent, offering highly sought-after scholarships and bursaries which can dramatically reduce fees.So, while England captain Maro Itoje finished his education at Harrow, bumping up the team's percentage of private-school attendees, he arrived there at 16 on a scholarship from St Georges, a state school in Hertfordshire.Ollie Lawrence and Tom and Ben Curry similarly finished their education in the private sector, after being awarded scholarships.St Joseph's recent success story is Emmanuel Iyogun, who now plays for Northampton and has represented England A. He arrived on a scholarship from Woodlands School, a state school in Essex.England international Anthony Watson and his former club and country team-mate Beno Obano, who went to Dulwich College on a scholarship at 16, valued such schemes so highly they set up their own, funding Harlan Hines' switch from a state school in south-east London to Marlborough College in 2022.A large proportion of England's elite players may emerge out of private schools, but their talent wasn't necessarily born in them.There may be fewer scholarships on offer in the future though.Since January, VAT has been payable on school fees.The move, which the government predicts will raise billions for state schools, has put pressure on private school's registers and balance sheets alike.Various figures in the industry have predicted that scholarships may have to be squeezed.As headmaster of Mount Kelly School, a private school in Devon, Guy Ayling is already making difficult decisions around awards for pupils."Bursaries and scholarships have a cost attached," he says. "That is the bottom line. They are costs like food, utilities and teacher salaries, and it is therefore something we have to consider."It is the way of the world moving forward; there is potentially going to be less money in the system and when there is less money in the system, you don't spend as much, including on helping families with financial assistance."Fewer scholarships would mean more kids in George Paul's position.The 23-year-old grew up in Peterborough. He played at Wisbech rugby club, but as he and his ambitions grew in the game, he wanted more rugby than his school would provide.He had a scholarship offer at Wisbech Grammar, a nearby independent school, but with family finances and siblings to consider he didn't take it up.Instead, aged 15 and finding his club side weakened as other talented kids switched into the private school system, he chased competitive rugby through a different route.
He moved to Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge, who play in the AOC league, a college-specific league a level below the ACE division."It is that struggle for state school kids, every one of them will tell you the same story," he says."When we played private schools, it was a motivation. The dressing room would be a very powerful place before those games."But you would also realise how well drilled they are because they have three or four sessions a week, compared to us having maybe one on Tuesday before playing on Wednesday."They would have multiple coaches, we would have one."I know what it is like to turn up at trials at Leicester or Northampton or Scotland-qualified events in random Canterbury kit from SportsDirect when other kids are in full top-to-toe private school branded tracksuits with logos, sponsors and the rest."They will be in their cliques, they might know the selectors, because they also work at their school. Every state school kid will tell you how daunting that is."Some people say 'that is what they pay for', and to a degree that is true."But I don't think there should be that consistency in inequality and lack of opportunity for state school kids that puts them at a disparity when it comes to pushing on in life."Paul went on to study at Hartpury, playing high-level university rugby, before turning semi-professional in Scotland with Boroughmuir Bears until the Super Six Series they competed in was disbanded last summer.Alongside playing, Paul launched Advice Academy, an initiative which worked in state schools in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and elsewhere to give their pupils the standard of coaching and analysis that is commonplace in the private sector.He is now establishing a high-performance community academy in Peterborough which gives talented young state-school players elite-level training and careers advice on a more regular, consistent basis. It will be free to those for whom cost would be a barrier to attending.Paul is dealing with issues that Don Barrell has spent decades wrestling with.Educated at a grammar school in Watford, Barrell was a professional rugby player with Saracens before becoming the club's academy director and, until last year, the RFU's head of performance programmes and pathways.
His job was to find and develop talent. There was an easy way to do that, by visiting the schools with a track record of bringing through elite players. It was one Barrell didn't want to rely on."When I ran the academy at Saracens, I worked really hard to go to spaces which weren't easy," he says."If you look at the talent system - you don't have to try that hard to see kids in establishments that play rugby."Genge was an unwitting beneficiary of the draw big rugby schools exert on scouts.A Hartpury coach had taken the obvious option one afternoon, watching Collegiate School, then called Colston's, in a pre-season friendly.Genge, motivated by a desire to prove himself against Bristol's private school players, turned out for the unheralded opposition and ran amok.That chance encounter led to Genge winning a scholarship which enabled him to live at Hartpury College, finally getting the same "back garden" view and rugby immersion as George.By his own admission, Genge's catching and passing were behind his peers when he arrived at Hartpury.Barrell says that isn't surprising. Or, necessarily, a problem."Rugby has a huge advantage in that it is a later-developing sport," he says."There is a real myth in rugby - no-one can look at a 15 or 16-year-old and tell you they are going to be an England player. It is impossible."If someone says they have got that prediction right, they have probably said it about 500 kids!"You have time."He says any assessment of rugby talent should come with context."You need to ask how long a youngster has been playing rugby, how many hours they have trained for, where they are in their physical and cognitive development, what their access to sport is like and what level of parental support they get."When you stack up those things - all of which can have an impact on perception - you can make better decisions."That is the reality in any world. Anytime someone turns up for some kind of assessment, all your biases start. The easiest thing is to go for is the polished figure."One thing that is hardest to measure is mental strength.Barrell was at the RFU when then England head coach Eddie Jones gave an unguarded interview to a Sunday newspaper, claiming that private schools didn't develop on-pitch initiative and resilience., external"If you have only been in a system where you get to 15, you have a bit of rugby ability and then go to Harrow, then for two years you do nothing but play rugby and everything's done for you... you have this closeted life," said Jones."When things go wrong on the field who's going to lead because these blokes have never had experience of it?"Jones added that English rugby needed to "blow the whole thing up" and end its reliance on private schools, hinting success would only come via a system, like in New Zealand, France or the English women's game, in which talent was drawn from a wider section of society.
The RFU responded quickly, publicly reminding Jones of the "valued role" private schools play in developing talent.Barrell, who points out that state school players outnumber those from private schools in England's pathway system before scholarship switches even things up around 16, is cautious about such generalisations.He cites Saracens and England back row Ben Earl, who attended private school and whose parents are in well-paid executive jobs."I worked with Ben a lot as a kid," he says. "He is fortunate and he would recognise it, but he is also one of the hardest working, toughest, most competitive people you will ever meet."However, Barrell's new position, as chief executive of Greenhouse Sports, , externala charity which delivers sports in some of the most disadvantaged schools in the country, has also opened his eyes."If your point of difference is having overcome some really tough things at a point where everyone else was having it given to them, those psychosocial attributes are really important,, external" he says."Some of the kids I work with now have that in bucketloads."I have seen kids overcome stuff that others, in a nice school having a fish and chip Friday, would baulk at."How do we change the system to accommodate kids who bring that?"Genge, who has his own charity working with disadvantaged youth in his native Bristol,, external agrees.For all the coaching and facilities he didn't have, he says his upbringing gave him something vital."It probably geared me up in terms of attrition and challenge" he explains."My character definitely wouldn't be the same if I hadn't gone through what I went through. You wouldn't get that if you went through some of those [private] schools."But what do you favour, the character of the man or someone who can pass off both hands at 16? There is good out of both."If English rugby is short of the former, it could start looking in less familiar settings."There are thousands out there like me," says Genge of the state system's untapped talent."But until we open our doors to all the kids and give them the absolutely necessary tools and resources, we are going to keep having this conversation."