The 3 things we need to concentrate on are:

Tackle

Pass

Catch

Its not hard - the gap between the 2 continents on the basic skills are immense. If we focus on getting the juniors doing those 3 things as well as the Australians and we stand a chance of competing

Get our forwards to be faster, more skilful and more agile

Reward amateur clubs that produce players that go on to play for England with improved facilities.

No doubt, we are playing catch up from a very early age. Our coaches are at academy level are teaching kids stuff they should already be second nature to them.

But how do we do that? The coaches we have at amateur youth level do it out of kindness after all. The volunteer and step in when very few do.

And how do we do that?

Bill Gates buying a Sky subsciption, loving the game and thinking he can turn it in to a better more worldwide product.

To be fair, I expect that would simply see us replaced as the third best nation by the USA, wouldnt really help us catch up Im afraid. Unless it turns out Bill Gates just really likes white shirts with red crosses on it.

Agreed - perhaps the RFL needs to do more with the resources it has at it's disposal?

A proper partnership with schools and some assistance for junior sides would be a good start, at least to get coaches properly qualified and to provide access to updates on coaching techniques for basic rugby skills; maybe if jr coaches were using consistent benchmarks and methodologies around basic skills, the randomness would be partially removed from a young lads RL development. A national curriculum for jr coaching if you will?

The single biggest issue is the level of high quality pe in primary schools (key stage 1 & 2). The fundamentals (physical literacy skills not sport specific) at this age are criminally over looked with children not reaching their maximum physical potential in the early long term athlete development phase. After this point, you can coach all you like and they'll still never reach that potential.

Sport in this country is always funded through justifying health agendas etc and not for it's own sake. You can't fully address the adult provision and elite provision til this is improved.

The other big one is the number of uneducated parents coaching at junior clubs, of course their time is appreciated unfortunately the quality is very rarely what's needed- like trying to run hook, line and sinkers before the can simply run on to a ball with a good catch.

Agree 100% with you, geting juniors from the age of five upwards to regard sport as natural as breathing is the way we should be pushing, The RFL should be pushing cash into providing propper training for coaches & using government schemes to get thier parents educated to the benafits of sport for thier kids as well as for them selfs. It will be a long slog untill we see any results but it should be persued.

IMO it requires a fundamental shift in thinking from everyone involved in the game from the grass roots up, to regard the elite international level (and producing players for it) as being the most important thing in the sport.

There are always going to be levels below that for those who want to enjoy the game on a social or recreational level, but the thought process in any strategic decisions should be "how will this make the international side better?"

At the moment, the international game is very much an afterthought - see the number of players who put off minor surgery until the end of the club season, thereby ruling themselves out of international consideration every year.

Until the "my club first" mindset is broken at both amateur and professional level, the game in this country will remain stagnant.