Steffon Armitage must be in England's World Cup squad, says Phil Edwards

Sky Sports News HQ's Phil Edwards tells us why England coach Stuart Lancaster must pick Steffon Armitage in his World Cup squad...

It’s not long now before Stuart Lancaster reveals his initial 45-man World Cup training squad. It’ll take place live on Sky Sports News HQ later this month.

So will he or won’t he? Will he pick the best available English open-side, or will he opt for loyalty and group harmony? Picking Armitage would be highly controversial. It would drive a coach and horses through the policy of selecting only English-based players.

This diktat is intended to discourage potential England players from earning big bucks, or more appropriately big euros, across the Channel. Many see it as wholly commendable and eminently sensible.

Twickenham has an agreement with the Premiership clubs, paid for with hard cash, that allows players to be released for international duty. Lancaster even gets an extra week before big tournaments to allow precious practice time at England’s five-star training camp in Surrey.

Players based at clubs in France, where this agreement is not bought and paid for, are not released for that extra week. They have to earn their corn by playing in the Top 14. They are therefore, quite understandably, deemed to be unavailable for England duty and overlooked at selection meetings.

You can’t have some bloke flying up from the Cote D’Azur and parachuting into the training squad at Penny Hill Park when the rest of the lads have been learning calls and training moves all the previous week. So the thinking goes.

However, there is a neat “get out” clause when it comes to this self-imposed rule.  Basically, if “circumstances” are deemed to be “exceptional” you can simply ignore it.  Great isn’t it!

Many argue that “circumstances” could not get much more “exceptional” than they are now for team England. There is a World Cup on home soil fast approaching, the Webb-Ellis Trophy is up for grabs and there’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity to leave a lasting legacy on the back of a successful campaign. At stake is the future health of the game in the country of its origin. As I say, exceptional circumstances.

The counter argument, heard from various quarters including elements of the current England squad, is that bringing Armitage back, at what amounts to the eleventh hour of the World Cup cycle, would send the wrong message to England hopefuls tempted by a life in France, and be harmful to morale.  

What I say to that is, ‘tough’. Harmful to morale? I’ll tell you what would be truly harmful to morale; not getting to the knockout stages of the World Cup - that’s what. 

England players are generously remunerated for their services to the mother country. They are not paid to have a nice time and share plenty of good-natured banter with a bunch of mates as if on a works outing to Margate. If they don’t like the idea of an outsider coming among them and perhaps out-playing them then that’s too bad.

I’m sure there are people at your place of work you don’t like. People who appear to be higher in the boss’s estimation than you are. But you don’t go into a sulk.  You just get on with it. You try to get better.

Andrew Cole once claimed he’d rather share a cuppa with Neil Ruddock, the player responsible for a tackle in 1996 that left him with a double leg fracture, than pour the Earl Grey for his Manchester United team-mate Teddy Sheringham.

The two players might have hated each other, but at five to three in the tunnel at Old Trafford they lined up together and formed a potent strike-force out on the pitch. Sir Alex Ferguson couldn’t have cared less that they weren’t exactly top of each other’s Christmas card list. More importantly, they won trophies together.

I do have sympathy for Lancaster. It’s just bad luck that the No 7 jersey is worn by his loyal captain Chris Robshaw. My gut feeling is that the England Head Coach will show his customary degree of loyalty in return.

But if things go pear-shaped in Pool A, if Sam Warburton and Michael Hooper inspire their countries to victories at Twickenham in the autumn, then Lancaster will be haunted to the end of his days by any decision to leave Armitage out in the cold. History remembers winners. It doesn’t care whether you were a likeable boss.