Historically, why isn't England better?

[Leonormous Boozer]

Genetics.

Can you name another country who has historically been better than England at rugby and football.

Oui

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Oui

The other nation also called the biggest underachievers in rugby.

 

[McTallshort]

Also with regards to support, if you look at the Premiership you will find that the vast majority of clubs are poorly supported, certainly when you compare attendances to football for example.

I know loads and loads of English people who have little to no interest in rugby apart from when the 6 Nations is on or there is a World Cup.

Support in Rugby shouldn't be measured in attendances at Sale or Wasps but in the teams and clubs playing every Saturday at local level and the massive level of players, coaches, parents that turn up on a Sunday morning at those Rugby clubs.

Rugby shouldn't be measured the same as football. It's a players sport not a fans sport

 

[McTallshort]

Genetics.

Would you rather choose from 1 million random Fijian men or 5 million random Japanese men to start a rugby team.

And as others said, a lot of the top athletes in england will play football.

Can you name another country who has historically been better than England at rugby and football.

France

 

[Umaga's Witness]

England are typically stronger in the forwards because there's less competition with other sports for the top forwards.

 

[Derpus]

Genetics.

Would you rather choose from 1 million random Fijian men or 5 million random Japanese men to start a rugby team.

And as others said, a lot of the top athletes in england will play football.

Can you name another country who has historically been better than England at rugby and football.

Rugby is only the most popular sport in NZ (this may not even be the case anymore?). Every other country has multiple codes above it.

 

[Goodey]

Oui

It's close but I don't think you can argue France are a historically better rugby nation than England. World cups, five/six nations ***les, and head-to-head records favour England both in the pro era and overall. Maybe this time 10 years ago you could go with France, and perhaps in a couple of years you could again, but for now it's not really supported.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Rugby is only the most popular sport in NZ (this may not even be the case anymore?). Every other country has multiple codes above it.

I think rugby is the top spectator sport (at the ground, Don't know about tv viewership). In terms of participation it's not. In schools netball is the most played sport, followed by basketball, then football, then rugby. Overall football is the most played sport.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

It's close but I don't think you can argue France are a historically better rugby nation than England. World cups, five/six nations ***les, and head-to-head records favour England both in the pro era and overall. Maybe this time 10 years ago you could go with France, and perhaps in a couple of years you could again, but for now it's not really supported.

I meant across the two sports. Difficult to measure but I reckon France take it considering how much better their football team have been.

 

[Wasps92]

France

I'll give you the football but disagree about rugby.

 

[die_mole]

So this idea of England being better is something I have heard quite frequently so I decided to do some investigating. Using pickkandgo's database England has the second best win percentage and the second best point differential in the professional era. They were second to New Zealand in each category and that should be expected, they are consistently the most dominant I was going to do some regression analysis including all the proper Rugby playing nations but since statguru has been taking off the web there wasn't enough available data. I did some regression stuff with the Tier 1 nations but as there are only ten nations it isn't really robust. If I don't have anything going on at work tomorrow I might try to scrape data on all nations. I used soccernomics hypothesis that the predictor of success is matches played, population, and gap per capita. I replaced population with registered senior men's players because rugby is not the game of the people and only used matches played against other tier one nations prior to the professional era. Keep in mind this is back of the napkin stuff.

Basically Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa have all overachieved in the professional era. New Zealand the most so, Australia just barely. Ireland is the only Northern hemisphere nation that performs above expectations in point differential while underachieving in winning percentage. England and Wales are together neck and neck for just under achieving, with Wales slightly closer to expectations.

So yeah, England does underachieve a little bit. But what would them being a little better look bit? Winning 40% of the six nations instead of 33%? They've won two World Cups (which are are decided by highly random knock out finals) [Not Correct], what do you want, five?

 

[Kiwiwomble]

I think rugby is the top spectator sport (at the ground, Don't know about tv viewership). In terms of participation it's not. In schools netball is the most played sport, followed by basketball, then football, then rugby. Overall football is the most played sport.

and the spectator numbers are well below what they use to be

I just made this point in another thread, i dont think NZ is anywhere near as passionate about Rugby as almost any other country is about their #1 sports

Its quite a stark reminder when you see 80k people go watch a mid season mid table game (ie nothing on the line) of AFL

 

[Derpus]

They haven't won two world cups?

 

[die_mole]

They haven't won two world cups

hmmmm . . . British propaganda machine works again.

 

[Derpus]

AFL is actually run like a professional sport and because there is no international governing body which is completely incapable of making a decision due to vested interests, it can make decisions to benefit the game.

Rugby is still run like an amateur sport in most places IMO.

and the spectator numbers are well below what they use to be

I just made this point in another thread, i dont think NZ is anywhere near as passionate about Rugby as almost any other country is about their #1 sports

Its quite a stark reminder when you see 80k people go watch a mid season mid table game (ie nothing on the line) of AFL

 

[Kiwiwomble]

AFL is actually run like a professional sport and because there is no international governing body which is completely incapable of making a decision due to vested interests, it can make decisions to benefit the game.

Rugby is still run like an amateur sport in most places IMO.

i agree although i'll add its run like an amature sport but without connecting to the actual amature aspects of the game

 

[ncurd]

Do they underachieve? Or lets put it this way if France didn't have so many issues in achieving what they are capable of would they have won more?

Out of the 9 world cups England have attended the final 4 times, thats equal with ye old tri-nations, they have 33% of six nation ***les since it became the 6 nations and 38% of the the 2nd place finishes.

They have a winning record against all teams except South Africa and New Zealand.

So then put France on the same level if we consider England a baseline give them an extra final, 2 six nations ***les, 3 second place finsihes. Then suddenly France/England are taking up 66% of six nations ***les, 76% of second places and 44% of world cup final places.

That isn't to say England probably should not of won an extra world cup or two in their time. Just they probably punch at the correct weight level and its France's failures couple with other successes than make them look worse than they actually are.

 

[Pom in Exile]

Oui

Have they historically been better than England at rugby though?

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Have they historically been better than England at rugby though?

No but they're not as far behind in rugby than England are in soccer.

Like the question was essentially is the other country of more than 10mil that's primary sport is soccer and have been playing rugby seriously before the 80s more successful across the two sports. They definitely are.

I'm fairly sure we've had this thread and it's gone the exact same way before by the way. Getting mad de ja vu writing this post.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

To counter their argument, why isn't England better at football than they are?