1. Lack of a world-class core
England are not very good. They have not won the Six Nations under Stuart Lancaster and in the three Lions Tests against Australia in 2013 their contribution to the starting line-up was three, four and two. If the Lions were to play tomorrow how many of the current England team would be selected? Anthony Watson? England have a deep reserve of players with the proficiency to play international rugby, but they do not have a core of world-class performers. Such groupings cannot be manufactured or coached into existence; they arrive when they arrive. It was Clive Woodward’s good fortune that he had such a group in 2003, Lancaster’s bad luck that he did not.
Out of the supposed chaos of the World Cup of 2011 (England’s misbehaviour was pretty tame), Lancaster brought a puritanical cleanliness to the England camp. Danny Care, Dylan Hartley and Manu Tuilagi paid the price for being naughty on or off the field. Everybody had to take a sort of pledge to be wholesome. But rugby is not necessarily a sport for decent, honest blokes; managing mavericks and the downright evil is all part of the equation. It’s not about converting excess into strokes of genius – England at their mightiest revelled in delivering summary justice in a very cruel Anglo-Saxon way. Perhaps England now are a little too nice for their own good.
3. … and a little too open
The coach from the start was happy to reveal what he was trying to do. He almost insisted on inviting any doubters and detractors into the camp to show them what his England were about. The trouble with knowing the theory is that it often made the contrast with reality all the more stark. If you like, Lancaster wanted his batsmen – and perhaps himself – to be judged on how they went in the nets, while out in the middle they kept getting out. Secrets are good. Even if you don’t have any, perhaps you should give the impression that the onlookers making their assumptions know nothing and should be kept even further in the dark. Old rugby saying: when in doubt, lie.
4. The luck of the draw
Or lack of it. There is an absolute folly about the draw for the World Cup pools. The lottery has created drama and excitement, but it has also made this World Cup for a fine Fijian team eminently forgettable. And for England, excruciating. The hosts had a little bit of good fortune when it came to rest periods between games, but the mere fact of being put alongside Wales and Australia reveals a complete lack of judgment by the organisers. They may shrug and say it’s too bad, but since with every other movement of their bodies they push for commercial gain, they really should have had a notion of the implications to their product.
5. The luck of the captain
Chris Robshaw is not a lucky captain. If he had his time over again and reversed those decisions he made against Australia and South Africa in the early days, and the one to go to the corner against Wales, the feeling is that he would still have made the wrong choice. Even when they were scoring 18 tries in the last Six Nations or beating New Zealand back in 2012, did England truly reveal nothing but absolute conviction? Or were they always one unlucky break away from having to start all over again?
6. The midfield gamble
The case for picking Owen Farrell over George Ford as a starter could be justified without too much of an argument outside the Ford family. But to pick Sam Burgess at 12 and Brad Barritt at 13 was a mighty gamble. Lancaster had always yearned for a midfield of invention, and spent most of the past three years tinkering to find one. When it really mattered against Wales, he settled for a Ford – as in Transit van. Workmanlike and not very fast. The one try England scored was a delightful move, featuring Billy Vunipola, Watson and Mike Brown before Jonny May – anyone, that is, bar a centre.
7. The system beneath
England follow the French model – or is it vice versa? – of choosing from a powerful network of clubs beneath the national set-up. These clubs have spent most of the 20 years of professional rugby fighting for control over the best players. The regions, districts and provinces of Wales, Scotland and Ireland are not without independence of spirit, but they are more pliant when it comes to the wishes of the national coach. Distances are smaller, common cause is easier to find. Can England, grandly based at Pennyhill Park, be possessed of a club spirit? Humility was a Lancaster watchword, but outsiders still see England as the overlords, affluent but not tightly bonded.
8. Ganging up on England
As soon as England had an advantage over Wales at the scrum last Saturday, everybody seemed to rush to find the expert who could prove that it wasn’t by fair means but foul. Joe Marler was boring in on Tomas Francis. Cheating England. Scrum coach, Graham Rowntree had to defend his scrum. Anybody from any other country would have smiled and shrugged and the accusations would have evaporated. England had to waste time worrying about how Romain Poite would referee them next time. Being England comes with extra scrutiny. It is part of the story of rugby union growing in a country that does not understand its arcane ways – a process that could be stopped in its tracks by this early exit – but it also underlines, as they found in Queenstown at the last World Cup, that being England can be onerous.
Who has seized his moment and played beyond what was expected of him at the World Cup? Ben Youngs perhaps at scrum-half, full of running and less prone to changing his mind in mid-backswing of his pass? A flash of the feet of Watson? Brown, fuelled by uncontained rage? In general, though, the impression was that England were less inspired than frozen by the occasion, just as they were on the day in Cardiff in 2013 when they went for the Grand Slam and came unstuck. The weight of expectation – it either lands on the plank and throws you upwards, or it hits you on the toe.
10. What now?
Where was the wedge placed that might stay the fall of the blade? The final? A semi? Certainly not an exit at the pool stage. There are many reasons to think England have made progress under Stuart Lancaster but no coach could survive this. And it means his team of assistants must go too. Graham Henry and Clive Woodward survived World Cup disappointment and went on to win their knighthoods, but this is a sorry end, a long way from a gong. A new show begins, the very public postmortem – at the same time as the World Cup from which England have been ejected goes on.
Source: www.theguardian.com
