RWC 2015: Stuart Lancaster still in denial over his England team selection errors

Coach a mere ghost of himself after failure on a grand scale

Stuart Lancaster will consider his position as England head coach (Getty Images)

It is not quite true to say that England are all washed up, but they are heading towards the beach at an alarming rate of knots. Stuart Lancaster, wandering through the corridors of the team hotel in so spectral a fashion that he could have been his own ghost, was still defending his midfield selections yesterday – proof positive that in the single most controversial area of the head coach’s selection policy, the blindingly obvious remains hidden from his view.

Unless, of course, he fully understands the problem but has failed to win the argument with Andy Farrell, his principal lieutenant – a man who appears to believe that games of rugby union at international level can be won with a rugby league mindset. If that is the case, Lancaster was not letting on: he is far hotter on collective responsibility than certain members of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. Even so, it is worth asking the question.

For almost four years, interrupted briefly in the summer of 2012 when Farrell decided that a return to club coaching was the best career move available to him, the two men have scoured the red-rose earth for a centre pairing worthy of the name. Their failure in this specific regard lies at the heart of their failure on a far grander scale.

To make matters worse, they succeeded in fielding a decent combination in the 2014 Six Nations, only to sacrifice it on the altar of size-obsessed conservatism. What happened to the players concerned? The Gloucester inside centre Billy Twelvetrees was spectacularly mishandled during the three-Test tour of New Zealand the following June and given the bum’s rush, while the Northampton centre Luther Burrell was squeezed out of the World Cup squad by two Test newcomers: Henry Slade of Exeter and Sam Burgess of Bath.

Slade was not trusted to play the big games against Wales and Australia, which makes you wonder why he was picked. Burgess, whose selection was not supported by a significant proportion of the squad, should never have been trusted in the first place – not even against a Mothercare XV. Slammin’ Sam was meant to be the ultimate impact player off the bench. The only impact he made at the weekend was around Michael Hooper’s throat, a subject about which he will surely hear more. How Burgess avoided a red card is one of the mysteries of the age.

Hooper, an open-side flanker lest we forget, showed more footwork and distributive skill at Twickenham on Saturday night than either Burgess or Brad Barritt, the two men England ran in the crucial No 12 position during their brief stay in the tournament.

Meanwhile, the Australians had Matt Giteau in the role, and it was Giteau who proved – once and for all, and for ever and ever, amen – that in the union game, players who can pass the ball are significantly more valuable than players who could not pass wind in a curry house.

Giteau was not alone in landing England with enough unwanted records to fill a second-hand music store: his fellow playmaker, the outside-half Bernard Foley, played too beautifully for words. His 28-point haul broke new ground for a visiting player at Twickenham, the previous high mark having been set by Daniel Carter Esq of New Zealand – hardly the easiest man to knock off a perch. Suffice to say that Foley’s performance was well worthy of its elevated position in the all-time list.

And yet, and yet. In the face of all this cast-iron evidence, Lancaster could be heard making morning-after noises in support of his choices at No 10 (where Owen Farrell’s promotion ahead of George Ford was far from universally welcomed) and No 12: the creative heartbeat of the operation. He was willing, if not remotely happy, to acknowledge that the Australian back-rowers had taken their opposite numbers to the cleaners and back again – “David Pocock [the Wallaby No 8] was a key difference between the teams; he’d walk into any international team,” he said – but on the midfield, he remained ultra-defensive. A bit like his midfield, you might say.

Like all the very best teams – and there is every chance that the Wallabies will merit inclusion in that category by the end of a now host-less competition – Australia set out to hurt their opponents in the very areas they considered themselves strongest. England were decisively out-scrummaged, comprehensively out-kicked and thoroughly out-tackled. There had always been a suspicion that Lancaster’s side would lose, perhaps heavily, the moment they ran into a good side playing well, and so it proved.

There was a lengthy period in the second half when England, two full seven-point scores adrift, found a way to boss the proceedings. The Wasps second-rower Joe Launchbury, their best player by such a ridiculous distance that he exposed the fallacy of the coaches’ recent obsession with Courtney Lawes as a first-choice lock, was heavily implicated here: without his contribution, the scoreboard would have been even more lopsided. But as Lancaster agreed, the resurgence ended when Owen Farrell clattered Giteau with an illegal tackle and trudged off towards the sin bin.

Which just about said it all. While Farrell was sitting on the bench in an almighty huff, Giteau dragged himself off the floor to apply the coup de grâce by picking a wide line outside Adam Ashley-Cooper and maximising the most accurate of running passes off the left hand from Foley, who plainly could do no wrong. It was clean and precise, cleverly conceived and wonderfully executed. It was the rugby of the mountaintops, inflicted on opponents who had lost themselves in the foothills.

Seconds later, as Foley converted from wide on the right to maintain a 100 per cent record on his night of nights, the thing was done and dusted. There were boos from some England supporters and some smatterings of polite applause from others. Somehow, the latter noise was the more telling. In sport, there is nothing eerier than the sound of one hand clapping.