Today the costs of paying of the previous England coaches has been revealed and it isn’t small. Together Lancaster, Rowntree, Catt and Farrell cost in excess of £1 million to leave their posts. This is mainly due to the fact that they were all given 6 year contracts only 14 months ago and are therefore able to rightfully demand a large amount of compensation in return for leaving the job.
Although this is an amount that the RFU will easily be able to soak up, this is the amount they have paid for the change that doesn’t include the costs of bringing in new coaches. That is also a prices which promises to be very high as although Eddie Jones was acquired quickly, the RFU still had to pay of the Stormers as they had only had him a matter of days. Additionally, at the moment it is clear that Bristol are not going to let go of Steve Borthwick very easily and this move will require a large amount of money to be exchanged for the 36 year old.
Then there are the position which are yet to be filled and although it is likely that Paul Gustard will come quite easily as Saracens have already said that if Gustard want to leave the they are not going to stop him. Finally it is probable that Eddie Jones will take charge of the attack himself, but it is also believe that he will bring in a scrum specialist to work alongside Borthwick and he may bring in another backs coach as well.
These costs along with the men’s wage bills will dramatically increase the amount the the RFU will have spent on the coaching transformation and that starts to put questions in people’s mind about whether Ian Richie has gone about this process the right way and if there is a possibility that others could have done better.
