How class warfare split rugby in England

There are ways in which sport is constantly changing — and there are ways in which it does not change at all.

And so it is that the England rugby squad for the autumn international series sees men from the north of England grossly under-represented. They amount to a mere six players in an extended panel of 33.

Basically, this amounts to fewer players in the squad who were born in the north of England than the number who were born south of the Equator. The second part of that equation is unsurprising given England’s prolific (shameless) use of players born in Africa, Australia or New Zealand, but the lack of northern-born Englishmen in the squad remains striking.