The faint whirring sound you can hear is the sound of mental cogs turning across English rugby. Not before time, many would say. History may even classify the national team's head-clutching World Cup campaign as a blessing in disguise. Surely we now have a consensus: things cannot go on like this. The Rugby Football Union is hosting the 2015 World Cup, the best opportunity for a generation or two to promote the game in these parts. Getting it wrong is not an option.
So what should the RFU do next? While we await the outcomes of umpteen reviews – strangely, no one has rung me yet – here are a few immediate suggestions. Picking through the entrails of 2011 is all well and good but the time has come for some fresh thinking ...
1) Ring Graham Henry without delay and invite him to pop into Twickenham for a chat while he is in London coaching the Barbarians this month. Then go down on bended knee and ask if he fancies swapping his Waiheke Island terrace for a four-month contract as temporary team director of the senior England team through the 2012 Six Nations championship.
2) Consider offering similar short-term caretaker coaching deals to Nick Mallett and Shaun Edwards (both of whom are currently available) to work alongside the existing RFU employees Stuart Lancaster and Graham Rowntree until April, with a view to something longer-term if things go well. All concerned would clearly prefer something longer-term but the union is not currently in a position to rush through permanent appointments. Several other possible candidates are also otherwise engaged until next spring.
3) Call Martin Johnson in for a heart-to-heart discussion. Tell him the RFU still has considerable respect for his technical knowledge but that, in retrospect, it was asking too much to propel a man with no top-level managerial or coaching experience straight into the role of national team supremo. Offer him the chance to prove his critics wrong by reapplying, if he so wishes, for his job. For terms and conditions, see No4.
4) Compile a shortlist of leading candidates: Johnson, Mallett, Conor O'Shea, Jim Mallinder, Jake White, John Kirwan and Sir Clive Woodward. If they are interested – and their present employers give their blessing – each would be asked to give a 30-minute presentation to the Professional Game Board in early January detailing how they would set about ensuring England go into the 2015 World Cup in prime shape on and off the field. Henry, in an ideal world, would sit in and share his thoughts before any appointment is finalised.
5) The outstanding candidate for head coach would be notified by the end of January, with an official start date of 1 May. This would allow plenty of time for suitable assistant coaches and back-up staff to be approached and hired, for an effective permanent team manager to be identified and for potential new players to be quietly assessed prior to the selection of the squad to tour South Africa next summer. Henry, having just won a World Cup, would not feel remotely threatened by a head coach-in-waiting. The players, moreover, would have even more incentive to perform.
6) Pick the right chief executive. The governance of the RFU is due for sweeping reform but appointing a pure businessman to run Twickenham would ignore the secret to future prosperity – success on the field. Clarity of thought, leadership and decisiveness are urgently required in both the boardroom and the dressing room. In addition to the City slickers reportedly being headhunted, I would interview Edward Griffiths of Saracens, the former Harlequins chief executive Mark Evans and New Zealand's World Cup supremo Martin Snedden. All of them would eradicate any lingering stuffiness or pomposity at Twickenham and make sure the union has its priorities in the right order.
7) Commit now to staging a home Test in autumn 2012 in the north of England. The RFU badly needs to recapture hearts and minds across the land if it wishes to hit its ambitious target for ticket sales in 2015. It will also do the players no harm to learn how to win games away from the cosy familiarity of Twickenham.
8) Rethink media relations. It seldom gets much publicity but for over a decade the RFU's communications department has largely been an oxymoron. No one has yet offered me a large cheque to sort this out but there is one fundamental tenet: players and coaches should be persuaded to view contact with both the media and the public as an opportunity, not a chore. Once that mental shift occurs, everything else – courtesy, punctuality, honesty, self-awareness – falls into place.
9) Make a concerted effort, as soon as practicably possible, to improve the basic skills of players aged between 10 and 15. Too many youngsters are being coached to play unimaginative, contact-driven rugby at too early an age. There is a reason why New Zealanders and Australians are more comfortable on the ball at the highest level and it has a lot to do with how they are encouraged to play in their formative years.
10) Cross your fingers. Because nothing is ever guaranteed. Every nation in the world will be striving to improve between now and 2015. Even if England do get it right, they will still require the dollop of luck which, as New Zealanders will testify, every world champion side needs.
DOING IT BY THE BOOK
Jonny Wilkinson's autobiography is out this week. Do not expect many bungee jumping anecdotes. The serialised bits in the Times have confirmed Jonny as being among those who felt England would have had a far better World Cup if some of his team-mates had focused rather more assiduously on their rugby. In Jonny-speak this is about as stinging an accusation as could be imagined. The subtext is clear enough: standards within the England camp are not what they were. Give or take Jonny's ball obsession – surely the time has come to stop numbering individual match balls and to require all kickers to use the first ball they are given – his heartfelt testimony should be enough on its own to precipitate a major reshuffle in the national team's hierarchy.
WORTH WATCHING THIS WEEK ...
The Heineken Cup. This is the 17th season of the world's foremost club-based competition and the sense of anticipation never fades. Nor does it take a few weeks to bubble up into something eye-catching. Even the most jaded of World Cup palates should already be refreshed by Sunday evening.
