Why are Edinburgh Private Schools so bad at Creating World Class Rugby Players?

Some ramblings for people to chew on over the festive period

Whilst staying with my in-laws over Christmas, I was thinking about a conversation I had earlier in the year about the declining importance of the Edinburgh private school network to the British Lions…think Andy Irvine, the Calder and Hastings brothers, Roger Baird etc. vs 0 test appearances in the professional era.

The question of how effective Scottish private schools are at creating ‘world-class’ rugby players is an interesting one (at least to me) and Ireland is always a helpful comparator for Scottish Rugby given the similar size of the population, a rugby pathway that over indexes to a capital city private school network and the divergence in success between the two countries post-2000.

Therefore I decided the only thing to do was to ignore the lively conversation, pull out my laptop and trawl Wikipedia for information on Scotland and Ireland player pathways and how they compare. So, fuelled by red wine and mince pies, I have pulled together a bunch of data and commentary comparing both countries and some insights for people to consider. So if you have any thoughts or analysis that could be useful, please share - we might even do a follow-up piece in 2023.

2022 World Class Players

How many ‘world-class’ players are there in Scotland and Ireland? And how do you define ‘world-class’? For the purposes of this exercise, I’m considering ‘world-class’ as a player who would be in the conversation for Lions selection (this is just indicative, please don’t get sour if your favourite player is omitted).

Scotland

• Highly Likely - Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe, Stuart Hogg

• Likely - Zander Fagerson, Ali Price, Chris Harris, Darcy Graham

• Possible - Pierre Schoeman, Rory Sutherland, Hamish Watson, Jamie Ritchie

There are arguments for players such as Cam Redpath and Matt Fagerson, but I think this is a fair list based on historical performances and current form.

Ireland

• Highly Likely - Tadhg Furlong, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Beirne, Josh van der Flier, Robbie Henshaw, Garry Ringrose

• Likely - Andrew Porter, James Ryan, Jack Conan, Caelan Doris, Conor Murray, Jonathan Sexton, Hugo Keenan

• Possible - Peter O'Mahony, Jamison Gibson-Park, Mack Hansen

Similar caveats as above, but I think it’s fair based on current form, especially with the Irish performances out in New Zealand.

Based on the names above, it’s immediately clear how much more influential the Irish private schools are when producing players that you might consider ‘world-class’.*

Scottish Private Schools - Strathallan

Irish Private Schools - Blackrock, St Marys, Clongowes Wood College, St Gerard's, Wesley College, St. Andrew's College, St Michaels, Presentation Brothers College

The two players from Scotland who completed their education at a private school are Zander Fagerson and Jamie Ritchie, both products of Strathallan. Interestingly, Edinburgh private schools have produced no one that we believe you could credibly argue would be in the Lions conversation as of Dec 2022. Contrast this to Dublin private schools, who make up the majority of the 11 outlined above.

However, this difference could just be an anomaly and my view on who should be part of a Lions squad is a little subjective. So, I thought it would be worth reviewing the last circa 50 years of Lions tours to see whether this trend has changed over time.

British Lions Involvement - Scotland vs Ireland Private Schools

As noted above, many products of the Scotland private school system have achieved ‘legendary’ status in a Lions shirt. Below, we’ve pulled together a chart showing the number of Lions selections** taken up by products of the Scottish private school system from 1977 to 2021.

When we layer on Irish representation, it shows a fairly clear trend - Scotland and Ireland's private school’s broadly tracked each other until 2001, at which point Ireland surged away (everything seems to have gone wrong once Matt Williams joined the Scotland setup).

Over the last four Lions tours, Scotland private schools have only been represented 3 times (Mike Blair - Edinburgh Academy, Richie Gray - Kelvinside Academy and Zander Fagerson - Strathallan). This compares to Ireland, with 17 individuals taking up 21 spots across the four tours - O'Callaghan, Heaslip, O'Leary, O'Gara, D'Arcy, O'Driscoll, Fitzgerald, Kearney, Healy, Sexton, Zebo, McGrath, O'Mahony, Porter, Beirne, Conan, Kelleher).

British Lions Involvement - Edinburgh vs Leinster Private Schools

The gap becomes even starker when comparing schools within Edinburgh and Leinster (I appreciate the Leinster player pool is larger than Edinburgh’s but its the trend that matters rather than the direct comparison). Edinburgh private schools continue to dominate Scottish school rugby, winning fourteen of the last fifteen Scottish School Cup finals, but this hasn’t translated into a production line of ‘world-class’ talent, unlike our Celtic friends across the Irish Sea.

Edinburgh Schools - Edinburgh Academy, Stewart’s Melville, George Watsons, George Heriots, Merchiston

Leinster Schools - Blackrock, St Marys, St Michaels, Belvedere College, Clongowes Wood College, St Andrews, St Gerard's, Newbridge, Wesley College, The High School

Scottish private schools have completely failed to produce rugby players of a ‘world-class’ standard over the last 25 years. Focusing on the Edinburgh schools, these schools have best-in-class facilities, huge player numbers (including offering scholarships), high quality coaches (including ex-pros), performance programmes and an almost complete lock up of the schools cup competitions yet seemingly are failing to produce talent that goes on to the highest level.

Now, the reason could be that the private school pathway is less effective in the professional era. However, the success of Irish private schools, and to an even greater extent Leinster private schools, would run counter to this.

Closing Thoughts

So why is it that Irish private schools are outperforming Scottish private schools? Maybe it has nothing to do with the talent coming out of the schools, and actually, if Marcus Di Rollo, Magus Bradbury, Jamie Farndale etc, had developed within the Irish system, they would have gone on to be Lions. Does the limitations of two pro teams, the standard of play below the URC, and our general approach to player development limit us so much that it creates this divergence in outcomes you see above?

We specifically used ‘world-class’/Lions selection as the key metric rather than ‘total number of club players’ because I think it’s pretty clear that the Scottish rugby system limits our ability to generate a high volume of good club players - think Rhys Ruddock and Dave Kearney.

However, when it comes to truly ‘world-class’ players, our assumption was that a proportion of those players we consider ‘world-class’ would have made it irrespective of what system they entered at 18; would an 18-year-old O’Driscoll or Sexton still have become a Lions player if they were Scottish? If Scottish and Irish school talent was switched would national performance still mirror the previous 15 years?

As I said at the start, there are no answers in this article - just some data points and questions that I think are interesting to consider. If anyone has a view on why this divergence has taken place in the professional era, please send them through in the comments section, via Twitter or via email - we’re interested to hear your thoughts.

*School is based on last year

**Players will be counted more than once if they have been selected for multiple Lions tours