RFU’s inaugural front-five get-together unites 26 promising teenage props, hookers and locks, with future World Cup success the target
On the night that England officially topped their group and secured a World Cup quarter-final, by virtue of Japan’s victory over Samoa in Toulouse, age-grade staff were preparing to pilot an initiative designed to solidify the senior side’s foundations for years to come.
Inspired by football’s focused camps for teenage goalkeepers and the dry-land training of junior platform divers, the Rugby Football Union staged its inaugural front-five get-together. Over the weekend at Bisham Abbey, a cohort of 26 promising props, hookers and locks from up and down the country aged between 16 and 19, the tallest of whom was 6ft 9in with the heaviest weighing 19st, immersed themselves in a packed programme.
Among the rotations were ‘flight school’, a specific line-out workshop guided by ex-Harlequins hooker Joe Gray, the self-explanatory ‘scrum club’, and a Sunday lunchtime look into how piano-pushers can contribute to open-field attacking scenarios. Experienced nutritionist Andy Kasper and psychologist James Mackenzie headed up sessions. Mako Vunipola visited on Saturday, with Nigel Redman and Conor O’Shea, two influential RFU figures, also popping in.
This “specialist support”, Jonathan Pendlebury explained, aimed to be as wide-ranging as the Football Association’s schemes for shot-stoppers.