‘England were found out at Rugby World Cup

England were “found out” at the World Cup, with years of scrummaging neglect requiring a cultural “sea change” in this country, Exeter’s Rob Baxter has warned.

Steve Borthwick’s side were beaten 16-15 by eventual champions South Africa in the semi-final earlier this month, having conceded a stream of set-piece penalties after Joe Marler and Dan Cole, their starting props, were replaced.

Asked about the prospects of Ehren Painter, who arrived at Exeter from Northampton Saints this season, Baxter launched into an extended observation on how the scrum has been refereed in the Premiership, as well as how that area of the game is covered by media.

Painter, 25, represented England against the Barbarians in 2019. The tighthead prop helped force a pushover penalty try for Exeter against Sale Sharks last weekend and Baxter saluted his influence before confronting wider issues.

“Ehren’s been fantastic,” Baxter said. “He’s a guy who’s working exceptionally hard and getting his rewards for being part of an eight that are going well and buying into things together. Without a doubt, it’s going to be hard not to see him as one of the top scrummaging tightheads in the Premiership. Let’s see what happens.

“We’ve probably got to make a sea change as a sport that we all need to be talking about the scrum being a big part of the game and not a hindrance. Without doubt, we’ve forced a situation, whether it’s been TV or media, where we don’t want scrums. Potentially, we’ve been found out for it now when we’ve got to the international stage.

“We don’t have to try to force referees to make a decision at every single scrum. You do that, and you start getting props rewarded for just trickery, really. That’s got to stop. If you want to develop scrummaging props, we have to start deciding that we like scrums, that we want them to be a big contest, that we want them to happen.

“I thought our referee against Sale [Joe James] refereed them really, really well. He allowed re-sets to happen when they should have been re-sets. That meant there was a really, really good scrummaging contest. He made decisions on what was actually happening rather than rushing into decisions that didn’t have to be made. If we can work towards that, we’ll see a growth of scrummaging props. But we won’t get it [otherwise].”

The Rugby Football Union recently staged its inaugural camp for promising tight-five forwards, in part to accelerate the development of potential internationals, and Baxter believes the selection of Marler and Cole to face the Springboks was another indication of England being left behind by other nations.