Lancaster to build for young talent
Stuart Lancaster plans to use his interview for the England head coach's job to persuade the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to build a centre of excellence to develop promising young talent.
England interim coach Lancaster wants the RFU to build a training base for the national team that would also provide indoor and outdoor facilities for the various younger age groups.
France have a similar set-up at Marcoussis just outside Paris and the Football Association are pressing ahead with their St George's Park centre of excellence in Burton-upon-Trent.
Lancaster is a leading candidate to become England boss on a permanent basis but, regardless of his future, he believes it is essential that RFU Chief Executive Ian Ritchie starts planning for the long-term.
"Long-term, I do think England need a national centre of excellence, without a doubt. It would allow you to deliver high performance," Lancaster said.
"Within the professional rugby department, it has never been put to one side or put in the bin, it has always been there on the back-burner.
"Now, it is definitely moving to the front of everyone's minds, about what needs to come next.
"I think it is important for whoever is getting interviewed to talk about the long-term plans both on and off the field.
"I would need to speak to the new chief executive (Ian Ritchie) to see what his mindset would be on the subject because it is not a decision for me in my role at the moment.
"From my understanding there is a motivation to move it forward, but I couldn't say any more than that at this stage, because there would be rather a lot of money involved, I imagine."
England currently base themselves in Test weeks at Pennyhill Park, a spa hotel in Bagshot, Surrey, which has its own gym and rugby pitch on site.
But Lancaster believes England need their own dedicated training centre, with indoor and outdoor pitches, to ensure the best possible preparations.
That message was hammered home during the week of England's Six Nations game against Italy, when a frozen pitch at Pennyhill Park forced the squad to travel to training bases across London and the south-east.
"That Italy week was incredibly difficult for us to manage - we ended up all over the place," Lancaster said.
"To not have the provision to train in the bad weather, the cold, to have a frozen pitch and have to go an hour-and-a-half into London to find a pitch, then to have to go to a school, was really difficult."
Even if England were to move to a new centre of excellence, they would still want a hotel base within close proximity of Twickenham for home Test matches.
"To have a centre of excellence would be a brilliant thing, but we'd still need to find somewhere nearer to Twickenham to facilitate the logistics of international games there," Lancaster said.
AFP