HUMILIATED LANCASTER HEADING FOR THE EXIT
Humiliated coach heading for the exit after historic failure SPECIAL REPORT Players dismayed at Andy Farrell’s major influence in selection
STUART LANCASTER last night appeared resigned to the imminent end of his tenure as England head coach, just as the first cracks appeared in the squad over their shattering World Cup exit.
RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie vowed to conduct a ‘calm’ and thorough review into the disastrous campaign which has seen the hosts fail to reach the knock-out stages for the first time. Yet, a distraught Lancaster appears ready to walk away as he admitted he will struggle to cope with the fallout from the defeats by Wales and Australia.
‘At the end of the day, I’m the head coach and we didn’t get out of the pool,’ he said. ‘It’s stating the obvious but it’s going to sit with us all forever; players, coaches and management. I don’t think I’ll ever come to terms with it, personally, because it was such a big thing.’
Lancaster can see the writing on the wall and there are already signs that his England squad was not as united as they wished to portray. It has emerged that, speaking at a corporate function last Thursday night, injured No 8 Billy Vunipola revealed that many players were unhappy about the selection of cross- code centre Sam Burgess over the more established Luther Burrell.
He is also said to have highlighted the dominant influence of defence coach Andy Farrell in the running of the England team, despite Lancaster’s insistence he had the final say over selection and strategy.
There is already feverish speculation about the identity of England’s next coach, in the likely event that Lancaster is no longer in charge by the time of the next Six Nations. Sir Clive Woodward is an early bookies’ favourite but it is understood the man who guided the national team to World Cup glory in 2003 is not interested in being head coach again.
However, Australian Eddie Jones, whose Japan team have beaten South Africa and Samoa at this World Cup, has revealed elsewhere in these pages that he would be open to an enquiry from the RFU.
Lancaster was an utterly dejected figure yesterday. Asked how he would weigh up a decision about his future, he said: ‘There are lots of factors. My responsibility as head coach — the accountability and responsibility lies with me. Family is a big thing, also what is right for the union and what is right for the team. All that will come into the final equation but it is not for now.’
Ritchie confirmed that players’ vi e ws would be s o ught — confidentially — as part of a review i nto what went wrong with England’s campaign. The RFU chief executive said ‘I don’t regret it’ when asked about awarding Lancaster and his assistants contracts through to 2020. He emphasised he will be heavily involved in the review process, potentially as part of a panel, but played down the prospect of his own decision-making coming under scrutiny.
In hindsight, England may regret joining Take That on stage at a ‘send-off ’ party last month. It now seems absurd to recall the atmosphere of pr e matur e triumphalism.
That glitzy event provided a clue about one of the myriad factors which have undermined the English challenge at this tournament. Behind the scenes, there were signs that all was not well in the Red Rose camp.
The fanfare that greeted Lancaster, Chris Robshaw and Co in East London on September 9 — nine days before their opening fixture against Fiji — was an example of how the England operation has been swamped by commercialism.
In the head-long rush to profit from this once - in- a- lifetime occasion, huge demands have been placed on the squad to satisfy countless sponsors.
They might have enjoyed the show that night, but a long and avoidable coach journey was not a recipe for enhanced performance. Neither, for that matter, was being wildly acclaimed before a single point had been scored.
A few years ago there was another, far longer journey which didn’t prove productive. In the search for pointers to the cause of England’s emphatic World Cup demise, Lancaster’s inability to secure the services of Wayne Smith may prove to be one of the most profound — albeit a case without blame. The Kiwi attack guru could have provided a potent blend of experience, technical expertise and tactical nous, but he was not prepared to work for a rival nation.
That was not the only failed raid on New Zealand. England have spent considerable time attempting to mimic rugby’s market leaders, without success . Many of Lancaster’s philosophies are based on the All Black blueprint, but he has also tried to make his team play like the world champions.
But the Kiwis were not the only inspiration — England have also tried to take their cue from Bath, Australia and the Springboks, suggesting an over-reliance on outside influences.
Before Saturday’s clash with the Wallabies, England hastily shot down claims by ex- captain Will Carling that the players have been treated like school children. He had a point.
There has been unrest in the ranks for some time over an overzealous management approach to controlling the players and how they behave.
The three-Test tour of New Zealand 16 months ago, meanwhile, was significant for the way the management damned Chris Robshaw with faint praise.
After a strong display in Auckland, his breakdown work was questioned by f orwards coach Graham Rowntree ahead of the next Test in Dunedin. At the end of the tour, Lancaster repeated those misgivings about his openside’s inability to match the specialists such as Richie McCaw.
Yet, these concerns were not properly acted on. Lip service was paid to promoting Matt Kvesic as a domestic rival No 7, while the notion of summoning Steffon Armitage from his French exile was constantly dismissed out of hand.
England’s party line was that the breakdown is a team effort, but on Saturday they ran into a one-man ambush called David Pocock, who laid bare the folly of failing to at l east explore alternatives to Robshaw in that key position.
This softly-softly handling of the captain was just one of many selection issues which have arisen. Much has been made of the recent swift demotion of George Ford and recall for Owen Farrell at No 10, which is in keeping with a belief that players have not been assessed equally.
Chosen men such as Farrell or Brad Barritt have earned countless ‘lives’ along the way, while others such as Ford, Billy Twelvetrees, Burrell, Kyle Eastmond and Semesa Rokoduguni have been discarded with indecent haste.
Then there are those reservations about what is seen as the dominant selection influence of Andy Farrell.
This year, the big upheaval has involved the hurried integration of Burgess. It is understood that this has created unrest in the camp, partly due to the fact his selection in the tournament squad came at the expense of Burrell, who had more of the ‘credit in the bank’ which Lancaster supposedly values.
Fluctuations in selection have led to strategic shifts which have, in turn, altered fitness targets — while reducing the squad to a final 31 for the World Cup became drawn out and almost farcical.
An 11th- hour trial match suggested management minds were muddled. Events have reinforced that view. Scratch below the surface and England’s demise adds up.
You know the real kneejerk reaction these days? Announcing that there will be no knee - jerk reaction. That’s the biggest knee-jerk of all, the race to assume the role of the only grownup in the village. Takes the place of thought, analysis, leadership, honesty, evidence-based criticism.
Ian Ritchie, chief executive of the RFu, was at it yesterday. What a sight he was — the man who gave Stuart Lancaster a six-year contract, lecturing the room on the need not to act in haste.
‘It is a time for calm, rational, considered reflection,’ said an administrator who decided Lancaster was right for the next World Cup before this one had even started. ‘We will do that in a calm, considered manner.’
He then talked up the final Pool A game with uruguay, the one that is now the third most important sports event taking place in Manchester next week, behind the Rugby League Grand Final and Terry Flanagan versus Diego Magdaleno for the WBo world lightweight title.
You could probably make a case for oldham Athletic versus Scunthorpe united, t oo, considering the parlous state of those clubs near the bottom of League one. At l east it matters.
Ritchie was looking pretty lightweight himself yesterday, as he blathered on. He should be mortified right now. Instead, he is pompously pontificating, as if he has a shred of credibility left. He has endorsed, long-term, a management regime that has just delivered the worst World Cup of any hosts in the history of the competition. And, still, he presumes to look down on his critics.
Having staked so much on Lancaster and his team, the RFu have no clue where to go now. They advance the long-winded review as if it is a considered solution, when in reality it is part of the problem. They cannot act decisively because never in their wildest imagination did they think this could happen.
WHEN Rob Andrew, the RFu’s Professional Rugby Director, said England would be better equipped to win in 2019, do not for one second presume he was thinking that the team wouldn’t make it out of the group in 2015.
A worst- case scenario involved a quarter-final exit, as Martin Johnson’s dwarf-tossers achieved in 2011. No country that has won a World Cup has ever failed to make the quarterfinals, and no host nation, either.
Pool A was devilishly tricky, true, but England had every other advantage. All key games at Twickenham, seven or eight-day recovery times, even for the last match against uruguay. They spent an age in training camps, with the familiar claim of being the best prepared side, as if the other nations spend their time sticking chips up their noses and finger-painting.
And f or what? To enter a tournament still unsure of the best XV or the best way to play.
England talked and talked about philosophy, culture and leadership yet, when the crunch came, were missing all three. Wales and Australia knew what they were about at Twickenham; England didn’t.
So, of course, Lancaster must go. Not as a knee-jerk reaction and not to the sound of a furious mob. He is a decent, honest man who did his best. It wasn’t good enough. That isn’t a crime, but it isn’t a reason to keep him on either.
England may have the makings of a good side, but this was his chance to tease that out and he didn’t.
The game-changing move against Australia, the introduction of the creative presence Lancaster dropped, George Ford, was forced upon him by an injury to Jonny May. England got good, briefly, by accident. ‘ We haven’t lost many big games,’ said Lancaster after the worst home defeat in the history of Tests with Australia, but that isn’t true, either.
England have lost the four biggest games they have played during his tenure, and spectacularly in most cases. Wales away for the 2013 Grand Slam; Ireland away in what was termed a Grand Slam decider in 2015; Wales at Twickenham in the World Cup; now Australia at Twickenham seven days later. Some say this is all part of the learning curve. Yet where is the upturn in that curve?
The line begins with England unable to secure the Grand Slam away, and ends as recently as Saturday night with them unable to win a crucial match at home.
In between there are the odd ups and downs, promise emerges, fades, gets replaced by Sam Burgess — and what some see as progress is just the narrative of a team as time passes. Good games, bad games, but England are still waiting for the leap, the sustained success that will signify the improvement we are told is being made. Lancaster was lucky in start- ing from a low base. The 2011 World Cup campaign will be remembered, mainly, for its charmless nature, an absence of discipline that alienated the players from the nation.
LANCASTER restored that affection, although it was noticeably missing as he gave his pitch- side interview after the game and boos could be heard from those that were not celebrating Wallabies.
At that moment, it is possible to assume the crowd would have gladly swapped Lancaster’s clean-cut England for some dwarf-throwing, beerdrinking, harbour-diving orcs who knew how to win a game of rugby.
What Lancaster’s regime will get is credit for the basics. Civilised behaviour, discipline — off the field, not on it, as the penalty count against England in this tournament shows — positive messages, clean noses. In other words, the unquantifiable.
This is the English way, winning trophies that do not exist. Lancaster spoke, after the Wales game, of the little awards that are given out to players in private and it is as if England’s management yearn for one, too. Best prepared. Best in training. Finest pre-tournament camp.
The elements for which hard evidence exists, not just turnovers and carries, but scorelines and grouptable positions, can then be ignored. To draw conclusions from them would be knee-jerk, or hasty — says the man who awarded a six-year contract to a coach who had not even won the Six Nations at the time.
It is hard not to appreciate Lancaster’s sincerity as an individual, but harder still to be his advocate t his morning. Certainly, t he argument that Sir Clive Woodward disappointed at a home World Cup i n 1999, before l eading England to its only glory four years later is utterly specious. Woodward was appointed in 1997 and had less than two years to prepare for the tournament. There was no real RFu infrastructure, no support staff and a pitiful budget. The England players did not have contracts and his predecessors were not full-time professionals. There were no additional training camps, and not even a formal arrangement governing the release of players from their clubs.
Woodward had to as good as invent the structure that would produce the world’s No 1 team. Despite this, he reached the World Cup quarterfinals before losing to South Africa.
Lancaster, by contrast, has had the best part of four years and the most well-funded back-up in world rugby. It would be like comparing the Manchester City that Manuel Pellegrini inherited from Roberto Mancini, to the one Jimmy Frizzell handed over to Mel Machin.
We like to presume coaching England is so tough that only a rare genius can do it — that’s how Roy Hodgson kept the football job, after Brazil — but this isn’t true.
There is an outstanding long list if the RFu consider foreign candidates, such as Warren Gatland, and a shorter one if Lancaster’s successor is to be English, as it rightly should.
Jim Mallinder of Northampton Saints has had England experience with the Saxons and Academy, and Rob Baxter of Exeter Chiefs was added to the England staff for the tour of Argentina and uruguay in 2013.
Mike Ford of Bath is favourite if the RFu are bold enough to give the job to the father of one of the players.
But there has to be a successor, because to endorse Lancaster would suggest what we have seen at this World Cup does not matter. That would be the biggest knee-jerk of all.