England risk missing out on best coaches with RFU set to snub Warren Gatland as Eddie Jones successor

Until now, current Wales coach Gatland had been one of the frontrunners to replace Jones should he leave at the end of this year

England will risk missing out on a number of leading candidates available this year to succeed Eddie Jones as a decision on his successor will not be made until after the Rugby World Cup, the Rugby Football Union’s interim chief executive Nigel Melville has said.

It means that high-profile names such as Warren Gatland, Shaun Edwards, Steve Hansen and Michael Cheika may all be unavailable should the RFU need to replace Jones, with a number of clubs and countries already sniffing around the world’s best coaches.

Until now, current Wales coach Gatland had been one of the frontrunners to replace Jones should he leave at the end of this year. Jones is contracted until June 2021 after the RFU handed him a two-year extension in 2018, although there is a break clause that can be activated if England fail to reach the semi-finals in Japan this year, and the prospect of the Australian remaining in the position after a World Cup triumph is a highly unlikely one.

Gatland will leave Wales following the World Cup along with his current defence coach Edwards, who is potentially available after his contract dispute with Rugby League side Wigan Warriors. New Zealand boss Hansen will leave his role at the same time, as will Australia’s Cheika and Ireland’s Joe Schmidt, who is not currently looking for a new role and will return home to New Zealand.

But despite the wealth of options to target, the RFU have altered their plans and delayed naming Jones’ successor until his own future is clear after the World Cup. Initially, the former RFU chief executive Steve Brown wanted the next coach to be appointed before Japan 2019 and work together with Jones through a transitional period until 2021, but while that remains loosely in place the identity of that person will not be known until England’s fate at the World Cup has been decided.

“What we will do is post-World Cup we will decide what is happening in terms of Eddie,” said Melville, who is in place following Brown’s exit at the start of the year until Bill Sweeney leaves his role with the British Olympic Association to take full charge of the RFU.

“(Jones) might underperform at the World Cup for example or he might decide he is not going to continue, then you start earlier with a new person.

“Have we got a list of people who we think could take over? Of course we have because that is what we do and it is a small list because there aren’t lots of lots of coaches out there who are capable of coaching England. We will be coming back midway through a season, then there is the Six Nations then there is Japan (summer tour in 2020) when I think the new coach will take over and Eddie will be in the back room.

“When you get back from the World Cup you are in the middle of the season so club and international coaches are potentially still coaching and are in contract. It is at the end of season when contracts come through.”

Regardless of Jones’ future though, it appears that the chances of Gatland crossing the Severn Bridge to swap Wales for England are slim-to-none. Wales’ recent Grand Slam success – in which they beat Jones’ side on their way to a record run of 14 consecutive victories – has not gone unnoticed at Twickenham, and with Gatland also having significant credentials with the British and Irish Lions as well as with Wasps, he would appear to be the ideal candidate for any job in world rugby.

Eddie Jones will be concerned with how England finished the tournament (EPA)

But not, it seems, for the RFU.

“We are talking about one coach. That is all we are talking about, one or two coaches. There are more than one or two coaches in the world,” Melville said. “We are looking at more than one or two coaches. The Warren thing – is Warren going to do the Lions? Is Warren going to France? Is Warren coming to England? Is Warren doing all sorts? At this point that is not a concern to me. The concern to me is what we are doing going forward.

“I brought (Gatland) to Wasps so I am quite well aware of his talent. I do speak to Warren. I absolutely understand that he is a very talented guy and has a fantastic résumé.

“I read comments ... If we are going to take his comments, I read that we couldn’t afford him and he didn’t want to come to England. So maybe France can afford him and we can’t. I don’t know, there’s more than one coach out there that we are looking at.”

If England are to look beyond the big names available from 2020, then it would point towards either a low-key appointment or the promotion of someone who is already within the system. The RFU have not hidden the fact that they see current forwards coach Steve Borthwick as a future candidate for the top job, although Jones’ contract extension was largely seen as evidence that the former England international is not yet deemed ready to be promoted.

But in a separate interview with the BBC, Melville revealed on Tuesday that Borthwick is contracted permanently with the RFU, meaning that while a number of Jones’ backroom staff will be out of contract after the World Cup, Borthwick will be kept on the books indefinitely.

Two other candidates are Dean Ryan, the former Gloucester and Worcester director of rugby and RFU’s current head of international player development, and Jim Mallinder, the ex-Northampton Saints boss now working as a performance pathway coach with the governing body.

But while Borthwick, Ryan and Mallinder would likely slot into the planned succession idea that the RFU are deeming as ‘Plan A’, the three of them combined cannot rival the success that the likes of Gatland, Hansen or Edwards boast on their CVs.