certainly do with a player able to contest

the breakdown with the effectiveness the

29-year-old brings to the role, a fact that

was painfully apparent during yet another

failed attempt to win the Six Nations.

Indeed, so obvious is it that everyone

from pundit Brian Moore to Armitage’s

Toulon teammate Mitchell has been

banging the drum for him to be involved

with England. Few people would argue

with the proposition that a back row of

Armitage on the openside, skipper Chris

Robshaw on the blindside and either Billy

Vunipola or Tom Wood at No 8 would be

signiﬁcantly better balanced and more

effective than any of the current

combinations.

“Steffon’s not only been knocking on

the door this year, he’s been doing it over a

number of years,” said Mitchell. “And to

have that type of player, if you look at the

England squad they probably don’t have

anyone who plays his type of game, that

high turnover rate and he’s a strong

ball-carrier too. I think he would really

add some value to the English squad.”

All of which is undeniable, but the

problem continues that Armitage remains

out in the cold by dint of playing his rugby

in France. Like Armitage’s brother and

Toulon teammate Delon, and Clermont

fullback and current European Player of

the Year Nick ‘Bendy’ Abendanon, who

won the last of his two England caps back

in 2007, plying his trade in France means

that coach Stuart Lancaster is not

supposed to pick him.

That rule came out of the ruinous and

protracted club v country ruckus in

England where the main clubs insisted

that the RFU only pick England-based

players as a way of stopping all of the

country’s crowd-pleasing talent crossing

the Channel in return for the bigger bucks

on offer in the Top 14.

Powerful clubs such as Leicester have

bristled at even the remotest suggestion of

that stance being relaxed, with their

former player and England World

Cup-winning centre Will Greenwood

recently asking “what chance would the

Tigers have of keeping hold of Manu

Tuilagi or Dan Cole if you could play in

France and play for England?” The

answer, by the way, is very little.

One would have thought that with a

home World Cup beckoning and

expectations at fever pitch, Lancaster

would take any available opportunity to

ensure he ﬁelded the most competitive

side available.

There are, however, some powerful

JUNE/JULY 2015 // NZ RUGBY WORLD //

interests lined up against the England

coach. As well as most of his leading clubs,

current test players such as Tom Youngs

and Tom Wood have publicly suggested

that to draft Armitage into the England

squad would be not only be unfair to those

players who turned down the chance to

play in France, but it would also

completely ruin the squad’s team ethic.

It was a line that held until recently. But

not only did Armitage’s heroics for Toulon

in the Heineken Cup remind many

disgruntled England fans of his excellence,

but several other nations broke rank. Wales

pick stars playing at French clubs, as will

South Africa and Ireland. When the

Aussies drafted fellow Toulon players

Mitchell and Giteau into their World Cup

squad, leaving only the All Blacks and

England holding the line, Stuart Lancaster

really started feeling the pressure.

To make matters worse, the England

coach even has a ready-made opt-out

because he is allowed to pick an overseas

player in ‘exceptional circumstances’, a

gloriously vague stipulation that has left

many England fans wondering how much

more exceptional England’s need has to

be before the under-ﬁre coach performs a

volte face.

The player himself has done little to

quell the furore. Both he and Toulon

owner Boudjellal have been vociferous on

why England should pick him, and talk of

his possible move to Bath only came about

because he apparently explored the

possibility of moving to the West Country

in order to press his case for World Cup

inclusion.

There was even a stage last year when a

frustrated Armitage looked set to take

advantage of a loophole inserted into

eligibility criteria by Olympic regulations

and declare for France after making a

cameo appearance for Les Bleus’ sevens

team.

Lancaster is surely tempted to name

Armitage on July 1 when he announces

the World Cup squad for a pair of World

Cup warm-up games against France in

August and then a ﬁnal sharpener against

Ireland in the ﬁrst week of September.

After all, even if there is an outside chance

of being embarrassed by the English-as-

Cheddar Armitage playing a blinder for

France against Les Rosbifs, why would he

take that chance?

And if Lancaster were to suggest that

the international qualiﬁcation and

selection rules were so fundamentally

broken as to be unsustainable, who could

argue. After all, you’ve got some Wales

players who are allowed to play in France

and others who are not.

France ﬁelded four genuine, biltong-

munching Saffers during the Six Nations,

and a whole bunch of guys with no blood

ties are trying to qualify for World Cup

squads on the basis of just three years of

residency, with former SA Under 20

skipper and Springboks bench-warmer

CJ Stander throwing his lot in with

Ireland, while fellow South Africans Josh

Strauss and WP Nel will be hoping to be

in Scotland’s squad even though they

don’t actually qualify until after the

tournament has started!

It is, Lancaster must surely be

concluding, a mad old world when players

who have no ties to a nation are free to

represent it, while born-and-bred

warriors like Armitage face exclusion and

their nation is hobbled simply because of

where they pursue their day job.