This is the first selection to cross this Rubicon of rugby fashion. The English Rugby Federation (RFU) announced on Friday that the XV of the Rose would wear for the first time in its history jerseys with the names of the players registered on the back on the occasion of the autumn tour. Eddie Jones’ men will baptize this tunic with their surname when they receive Argentina at Twickenham on November 6, the first of their four November meetings.
“We are delighted to display player names on the back of England shirts for our Autumn International Tests. We hope this will pave the way for us to consider flocking the names on the shirts to further promote our world-class international players”, explains the president of the federation, Bill Sweeney, specifying to think about also doing it for the national team. feminine.
“The potential to bring fans closer to the stars”
“While fans and players will always be proud to carry our flag and the rose in support of England’s rugby teams, we believe putting names on shirts can have the potential to bring fans closer to the stars of our game and we look forward to impatient to see the reaction to this initiative”, continues the leader.
The RFU accompanied its press release with a photo of three of its players, fly-half Marcus Smith, prop Ellis Genge and winger Jack Nowell posing with the flocked jersey of their surname. The XV de la Rose is preparing its autumn meetings on the island of Jersey, in the English Channel.
The FFR “will carefully follow the experience”
Historically, professional rugby players do not wear flocked jerseys with their name, unlike what is done in other team sports. The tunics are numbered from 1 to 15 for the incumbents according to their position, and from 16 to 23 for the substitutes.
The XV of France unveiled its new jersey, created by its equipment supplier Le Coq Sportif, on Tuesday evening. Used for the autumn tour and the Six Nations Tournament, it will not display the names of Dupont, Ntamack or Penaud but contains inside the list of 1922 French amateur clubs. Since 2020, the FFR has also registered the names of these clubs inside the numbers, put the name of the training club of the player concerned on his shirt under the number or even initialed with the surname of the concerned, his number of selections and the match in question the tunic on its lower left part of the front side.
“We are following the issue of flocking on the back of the jerseys very carefully, indicates to the Parisian-Today in France the director of communication of the FFR, Laurent Latour. Two years ago, we started reinventing this jersey, in discussion with the staff and players of the XV of France. We assume that the first star in rugby is the team. There is no decision made yet around this point for the next season, and it is very good that the RFU is going to explore this territory. This is a concrete case that we are going to look at very closely. »
