There are two sides to 'comparing with RU'. Firstly, its correct that they have a different demographic, an inherent media and establishment bias, etc. For that reason, attempting to ape RU is the wrong approach. An example of this (albeit connected to Sport England, I accept) is the contrived Home Nations teams at the expense of Great Britain.
However, whilst copying specifics of RU is wrong, there are generalities that we can learn from ( although not uniquely from RU if we're talking generalities of course ). In fact, the above example is one of those things. The attraction of the international game is as much about 'tradition' and what it means as it is an individual game. When you watch those players pulling on a famous shirt, a part of you is watching the previous generation and remembering their history. That's why it was mistake to effectively drop Great Britain.
More significantly though, the sports that do well have strong leadership, with a clear vision of the sport's brand, that are able to inspire confidence in investors and sponsors, etc. Unfortunately our game's leaders simply lack the charisma (and almost certainly IMO the competence) to win that confidence. I've been laughed at for mentioning Nigel's suits, but only by people like Smokey, too thick to understand that the point isn't the suit, its that when a leadership team puts up on their website an image of them all looking, frankly, like a convention of regional scrap metal dealers ( no offense, 'tis a noble trade ) it tells you something about their understanding of image and marketing (i.e. they don't have much idea). There's just a lack of professionalism in the image of the game. What continues to mystify me, is how the failure to find a main sponsor isn't a resignation issue (and this BS about lots of little sponsors being just as good is just excuses - it's not either/or, and don't tell me they'd turn away a main sponsor if they could have found one)
