Jonno Balding leans over the dining room table and holds out a rather substantial arm. At 6ft 9in tall, the Gloucester academy lock represented England Under-18 while still a year younger than most of his team-mates. He is highlighting a technical titbit, regarding his scrummaging from the second row, that he took away from the Rugby Football Union’s inaugural tight-five camp 12 months ago.
 
“There is a huge difference between binding straight, like that, and binding around, like that, so that you are tighter and your whole shoulder is on,” explains Balding.

“That’s something that might be overlooked in a session where you’re just trying to get the reps in. Here, you have time to analyse it in a meeting room and then try it out on the grass.”

Back at the second edition of this tight-five initiative, Balding pinpoints depth and detail as the major benefits of staging position-specific coaching clinics for the most promising talents in the country. This year, for the first time, backs have joined the three-day get-together at Bisham Abbey, meaning that over 50 players will attend in total.

Will Parkin, the England Under-18 attack coach, is accompanied by Mark Mapletoft, the England Under-20 head coach, as well as pathway kicking specialist Alan Kingsley and Mike Friday to prepare these teenagers for what lies ahead. “School and academy games are brilliant to watch with loads of broken-field situations and very exciting attacking rugby,” Parkin says. “The challenge is that defences are much better at the next level. And in the next six months, a lot of them could be in full-time training with Premiership sides.”

Only 30 himself, Parkin is forging an impressive and intriguing career. He initially joined the community department of Northampton Saints over a decade ago before moving into the club’s academy set-up. Sam Vesty and Chris Boyd were valued mentors before he was recruited by the RFU in the summer of 2023. Parkin stresses that his Under-18s sides “are never going to hammer structure and field position”. Elite opponents, though, are usually broken down with patience and craft. While scrum-halves average just four box-kicks per game for England Under-18, the corresponding figure at the Under-20 World Championship was around 18. Fundamental skills are critical.

“We had a good chat this morning to the scrum-halves about what they were working on… and none of them said their pass,” Parkin adds. “Actually, that’s their ticket to play. They were saying things like their running game. For me, their pass has got to be the number one thing all the time.

“It was: ‘Well lads, you might be good at those things, but if you’re not good at kicking and passing, you won’t get on the pitch to show that’. We run these camps, to support them on what’s to come.”

Attacking kicks, such as the ones Marcus Smith struck to set up Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (watch video below) and Tommy Freeman for tries against New Zealand in July, will be covered and Parkin is particularly eager for wings to sharpen their ability to roam around the field and pick up telling touches.

As a fly-half on a steep trajectory, James Linegar has had a taste of what is to come. Last season, he won the Premiership academy league with Bath before signing a first professional contract and touring South Africa with England Under-18. Over the summer, he spent a couple of weeks with Johann van Graan’s senior squad. Remembering one session where the towering Jacques du Plessis came after him, Linegar describes defensive line-speed as just one example of the step up.

“You’ve got so much less time that you would have at any other level that I’ve played at,” he says. “I was having to make decisions so much quicker. I made a lot of mistakes, but will have learned for next time about the depth I’ve have to give myself and how good my core skills will need to be. They’ve got to be unreal.”

Upon arrival at Bisham on Friday morning, players had been shown an interview in which Steven Gerrard recalled his earliest days at Liverpool and how he realised that he had to harbour an obsession – “a healthy obsession” chimes a grinning Jonathan Pendlebury, the England Under-18 head coach – with self-improvement. This is not to say schoolwork should slip down the priority list. It is more a means of promoting diligent application. Budding props, for instance, will be recommended body-position drills that they can conduct at home or in a gym in front of a mirror. Nathan Catt will happily receive videos and return tips, as he has done for Afo Fasogbon.

Lunch has the players mingling in the colours of their academies – all 11, including Yorkshire, are represented – before they change into England kit for the afternoon. Logistics staff deserve praise here, because the schedule has multiple moving parts, from strapping time to snack breaks, performance psychology sessions, the dreaded bronco fitness test and other meetings. Saturday, a designated scrum-fest, will be led by Catt with a visit from Tom Harrison, Steve Borthwick’s set-piece lieutenant. Around 15 external coaches will observe as well. The hope is that good habits will be spread.

Prior to that, speed testing for both groups – the backs and the front five – takes place around 2pm on Friday, foreshadowing the first ‘on grass’ training sessions. Parkin leads a passing drill for the backs in which a first-receiver lifts a short pull-back to another player, who fizzes it 15 metres. This smiluates a shape that has become ubiquitous in phase play and from first-phase moves.

“Don’t throw it blind,” says Mapletoft when a pull-back goes to the floor. “Just turn slightly and use your peripheral vision.” Eager to sharpen off-the-ball work, Parkin addresses those sweeping around the first-receiver: “Stay hidden and then square yourself up”.

Later, there is a positional split that sees Parkin hone some high-catch technique while Kingsley offers kicking pointers. Friday gets his hands on three scrum-halves. His son, Lucas, is one of the most highly-rated young scrum-halves in the country and, although he is not at the camp, is likely to feature for England Under-20 again this year after coming off the bench in the World Championship decider. Friday senior uses a drill where the nines must dart around one of four coloured cones dotted around a make-believe ruck before whipping a pass away. The aim is for them to organise their feet so that they establish a strong base from a variety of approach points.

Renowned as a stickler for this skill, Friday is enthusiastic and positive yet direct. George Newman of Exeter Chiefs, another England Under-18, fires two passes off the deck before releasing a third that dips a little. “Ooh,” groans Friday. “That’s maybe where you’re a bit tired.” The coach reckons Newman’s non-passing shoulder might have just relaxed slightly and suggests that they review the footage later. This drill is being filmed on an iPad while a drone whirs overhead to capture other activities.

As Andy Titterrell goes through some throwing with the hookers, props and locks gather on the other side of the pitch and Pendlebury zeroes in on lifting. He judges pods of three on their speed over the ground – to one of three cones at different distances away from the touchline – and into the air as well as ‘max drill’; essentially whether the props are hoisting their jumper as high as possible. Balding is prominent, as are hefty front-rowers such as Sonny Tonga’uiha, son of Northampton legend So’ane, from Saints. Pendlebury urges jumpers to boss matters and asks the protagonists to share feedback: “If he felt like a bag of potatoes to lift, tell him.”

Over with the backs, Parkin is refereeing a game designed to help players identify and locate space in transition situations. One can register points by hitting grass with a kick as well as by picking off chasers and running the ball over a line halfway across the area. There are booming strikes, acrobatic catches, pace, footwork and plenty of crisp passing.

The tight-five section of this camp is framed by the manner of England Under-20’s world title and the recent progression of some special props including Asher Opoku-Fordjour and Fasogbon. Over lunch, Catt finds out that Billy Sela – still eligible for the Under-20s this season – has been named on the bench for Bath against Leicester Tigers. These tyros can climb the ladder rapidly.

But many players, in the backs as well as numerous flanker-turned-front-rowers, have only just converted from different positions. Parkin name-checks Asa Stewart-Harris of Saracens as a full-back who has become a scrum-half. In that sense, as Catt puts it, the attendees are effectively settling upon a trade and discovering what it will take to survive and thrive as professionals. “They are going from Under-18 to Under-20 and then into Under-40,” says Pendlebury of the task ahead. Up until Under-19 level, scrums are only allowed to be pushed a metre and a half. They are about to encounter a new sport.
 
Size, insists Parkin, is not an overwhelming concern for backs at Under-18 level. A recent meeting with Saracens centre-cum-wing Angus Hall, who started for England in the Under-20 World Championship final and is picking up game-time at Ampthill in the Championship, showed him how much physical development can be packed into the first few months in a senior set-up. Hall has bulked up considerably.

Interestingly, and partly for that reason, Parkin chose to combine fly-halves and inside centres rather than separating the latter. “There’s definitely a need for players to be good around the collision on both sides of the ball,” Parkin says. “But I think to unlock the quality of defence we’re seeing at the top level, we need people who are comfortable at playing to space.
 
“The 10s and 12s we have here will be getting lots of exposure at first-receiver, lots of touches and [will be encouraged] to be a triple threat of kick, pass and run.”

Amid the drizzle on a grey day, work is underway to ensure a bright future for Premiership prospects and the England side.