Jack Rowell, who has died aged 87, was one of the most successful rugby union coaches of the second half of the last century; first at Bath, where he led the club to five league titles and eight cup final triumphs between 1978 and 1994, and then with England from 1994 to 1997, a period in which the side notched up 21 Test wins in 29 matches and delivered a Five Nations grand slam.
Modern rugby union gets a bad rap for being homogenous. Matches sometimes feel like a contest between two sides that play in a similar fashion; box-kicking to control territory, running three-man pods of forwards with a fly-half out the back, rolling back-rowers out of mauls to pass into midfield.
England’s only mid-season international ended with a new-look side defeating France, but the occasion underlined the problems rugby league possesses