RWC 2015 fallout: Where do England go from here?

England's failure was so complete that it poses questions not just about the coach, captain and tactics but the very quality of English rugby

England captain Chris Robshaw, centre, looks on dejected after his side's exit from the Rugby World Cup (Getty Images)

Remember the title of Stuart Lancaster’s favourite book of coaching, The Score Takes Care of Itself? There’s an easy quip to make there, and the punchline is England’s past fortnight of World Cup pool losses: 28-25 to Wales and 33-13 to Australia. Ha bloody ha.

They are not laughing, the mums and dads getting up this morning to drive little Jonny and Joanne to mini rugby, the volunteer administrators, the players and coaches, the stick-legged referees, the students and veteran Extra Bs, who all wanted more from their once-in-a-lifetime home World Cup.

The supporters massing at Euston yesterday morning for the train to Manchester, and England’s dead rubber with Uruguay, eyed with envy the bloke in the golden Wallabies jersey crossing their path on his jaunty journey to the Pool A decider with Wales at Twickenham.

Lancaster cannot stay in his position as head coach.

&#13; <p>Hugh Godwin</p>&#13;

These good folk will carry on, of course, because they love the game. But they deserved better, both from the Rugby Football Union, who have no restriction other than their own limitations on who they can employ to look after the national team, and the Aviva Premiership clubs, who are handsomely recompensed out of international receipts for releasing players to England and must be part of the scrutiny in any RFU World Cup review.

Winning at Under-20 level, as England have done in recent years, is one thing, but is the Premiership breeding leaders of men who are technically excellent, or workhorses in a competition that sets as a mission statement that it is a level playing field?

Lancaster cannot stay in his position as head coach. There were too many baffling decisions leading to the failure to reach the quarter-finals, including the huge gamble surrounding Sam Burgess, and too much loss of faith and face before and during the World Cup, adding up to five big defeats in the past 12 months: to Ireland away, and South Africa, New Zealand, Wales and Australia at home. In this oft-quoted “results-based business”, that sequence represents bankruptcy.

The next important thing to understand is that England’s coaching of late has been led in a practical, hands-on sense by Andy Farrell, not Lancaster. The rugby league legend has ploughed a deep furrow since he switched to union at Saracens in 2005, became an unconvincing centre under Brian Ashton at the 2007 World Cup and then toured as an assistant coach with the 2013 British & Irish Lions.

Whether or not Lancaster and Farrell come as a pair is unclear, but parting with the latter would change the direction of the England team, and it would remove the suspicion, however tiny or unfounded, that Owen Farrell, the coach’s son, is subject to biased selection (for the same reason, it would be a gamble to bring Mike Ford, dad to the other current England fly-half, George, back into the set-up).

England head coach Stuart Lancaster (Getty Images)

Much was made of “culture”, but the England team news was being leaked, allegedly by the agent of a non-selected player. The captaincy was another problem. I would have at least left options open by picking someone other than Robshaw for a few matches instead of making it so much about one man. Or is there a commercial imperative there, for the needs of sponsors’ ads? National pride can come before a fall, but are the RFU, often accused of arrogance, actually more concerned to promote only those personalities they feel they can control?

There are other plot twists to foresee in the drama This is England, 2016. Rehabilitating Dylan Hartley, getting Manu Tuilagi fit, working out what to do about Burgess. And how about setting an England style and sticking to it? As Toby Flood, the 60-cap England fly-half playing for Toulouse in France, put it in a heartfelt conversation: “England played attacking, fearless rugby for the last 12 months but it seemed they got stifled and a little nervous and there were changes in selection that created questions. We lost a bit of what had made England good: the audacity and the tenacity of having a real crack at people.”

The only way is up and the beginning is nigh, with the return of the Aviva Premiership in which, bitter-sweetly, the opening match sees Harlequins play Wasps at the Stoop this Friday night, 500 metres and 20 hours away from the first World Cup quarter-final at Twickenham the following day.

It is understood Robshaw, Mike Brown, Joe Launchbury and most other front-liners from England’s demise will not be pitched back into the league immediately. Instead, exciting youngsters, including Maro Itoje, Jack Clifford and Elliot Daly, and fringe World Cup players such as Quins’ new captain, Danny Care, will start stating their cases to play in next year’s Six Nations, and the next World Cup in 2019.

Two of the Premiership’s best-known English directors of rugby, Dean Richards of Newcastle and Jim Mallinder of Northampton, are candidates in some eyes to succeed Lancaster, if the RFU make a change. Steve Diamond, another English DoR, at Sale Sharks, says Richards would be an ideal England manager. A foreign interest has been declared by Eddie Jones and Jake White.

There are loads of Englishmen with something to offer a rejigged coaching panel, including Brian Ashton, Jonny Wilkinson, Shaun Edwards, Martin Johnson, Ben Kay (TV’s best analyst) and Rob Baxter.

Richards himself revealed he had turned down the England coach’s position in 2008 when the RFU approached his then club Harlequins, and that he has “never even considered it once” now.

In the shake-up after the 2011 World Cup, Mallinder was a rarity in declaring he wanted the job, only for Lancaster (the in-house RFU man) to be appointed ahead of the much more experienced Nick Mallett, with an all-English coaching ticket of Andy Farrell, Graham Rowntree and Mike Catt eventually joining him. Though Mallinder’s public comments today are cautious, the sense is that his ambition has not altered. He could be the new boss.

The only English World Cup- winning coach out there, Clive Woodward, walked away in 2004 and has regretted it almost ever since. He is said to fancy a version of the performance director job currently held by Lancaster, and I feel he has matured through a little penance while still showing himself as one of the English game’s most energising thinkers.

Intriguingly, Flood said England had tried to find a way for Johnson to return to the hierarchy as late as 2013. Otherwise, the former Newcastle and Leicester No 10 was upbeat. He would like to see New Zealand’s current backs coach and World Cup winner Wayne Smith recruited, whether that is under Lancaster or someone else. “Smith and [half-backs] Ben Youngs and George Ford would be frighteningly good, just sensational,” Flood said. “They could revolutionise the way England play.”

Another salient point was confirmed by Richards: “In New Zealand, everybody’s singing off the same hymn sheet, people slot into systems and shapes very easily,” he said. “The RFU and the clubs missed the boat [of creating a joint structure] in 1996 when the game went professional, and unfortunately we’ve got to make the best of it.”

3 key questions: Godwin’s view

1. Should Stuart Lancaster keep his job as head coach?

No. Lancaster has achieved some good things but he made baffling decisions, including the Sam Burgess selection, plus his team have slumped to five huge losses inside the last 12 months: Ireland away, and South Africa, New Zealand, Wales and Australia at Twickenham. He has to go.

2. Should Chris Robshaw remain captain?

No. He should be battling it out for the No.6 jersey (assuming he doesn’t high-tail it to a French club). I’d gamble on fly-half George Ford as captain for the Six Nations Championship, or even pick a captain match by match in the short-term, and keep in mind that if a certain Sam Burgess spends another year in rugby union and becomes a Test-standard flanker he would be a great fit as skipper.

3. Should England stick with their policy of not picking players based abroad?

No. Even though it’s true that many of the leading Test nations have some version of this policy, and the fear is that relaxing it will see many top English players go to France and ruin the Premiership. But how many do they think would leave? Wages in Wales are not huge but only a handful of players have gone from there. The RFU should reach a different kind of compensation arrangement with the clubs.