Have England prepared correctly or has a trick been missed?

Yesterday, Stuart Lancaster revealed his thirty one strong side to take on the world. Many people will go into "why has he chosen X and left out Y?!" "Is he the right fit for the team?" or "where is that guy?" I'm more interested in the preparation aspect of the selection. Lancaster and his team picked the squad, partially aided by an old fashioned closed door in-house contest. Obviously, we haven't been able to follow the team all the way to the States and back, but we have been able to make judgements based on opinion and how players played in the warm up tests. But I think more could have been done and the RFU and management teams have missed a trick. 

If you want supporters to get behind a team, you need to see them play. Club supporters will have wanted to support their national side and watch them improve.  The World Cup prices have had people moaning about being priced out of the game so the RFU could have done something about it. Perhaps they SHOULD have done something and given the fans a chance to watch their England side play live. 

My thinking is this: we have twelve Premiership teams sitting idly by, training for next season. They can't start fully until mid-October, so give them something to do. So to give them a chance to run out against an England side, I would have suggested creating five Barbarians sides, one for the five Premiership regions. Ok, I know we aren't divided into regions but stay with me. If we wanted to divide up the teams to create Barbarians sides, there's a great way to do it. Compass points and then London. Up in the North, Newcastle and Sale could take over the AJ Bell stadium for a day. In the West, Wasps and Worcester can hit the Ricoh Arena. The huge stadium could also host Northampton and Leicester as the East Midlands side for a double header over a weekend. The South West is dominated by Exeter, Bath and Gloucester who have a choice of three stadiums to go to. Finally the London group of London Irish, Saracens and Harlequins who could go to Twickenham but would be better off using the Madejski Stadium. 

How much fun could we have had watching Lancaster trial combinations against the best of the Premiership not selected for international duty? Many of the club mates of the international players have been pressing on the heels of the wider squad. Who wouldn't have enjoyed see if Alex Waller against Alex Corbisiero would show a need to get some extra scrum drills that week? Or if Christian Wade would outpace and tackle harder than Jack Nowell? Or even if Chris Pennell and Ben Foden could recreate their magic from the Crusaders game? A grand opportunity was missed in my view. But what I'd like to know is... If you were to pick a regional Barbarians squad, who would you have chosen to play against England? And would you go to those matches? Get in touch and let me know. And finally, this September and October, make sure you #WearTheRose!