Anyone who doubted Stuart Lancaster's credentials to restore some much-needed humility to the England team needed only to attend juniors night at West Park Leeds, a Yorkshire Division Two club located in the city's northern suburbs, on Wednesday – on the eve of the confirmation of his appointment at Twickenham as the interim coach.
"It was freezing, bleak, and Lanny was up there coaching one of the teams, and looking like an iron man standing there in his T-shirt," says John Bentley, the former Lions wing with whom Lancaster worked closely for several years at Leeds Carnegie.
"His son had come off to the touchline and pinched his fleece. Both his son and his daughter play in West Park. His daughter's a very good player actually, a scrum-half, and they'll both be involved in a big festival we've got on this Sunday. I'm sure Lanny will be there too, if he can fit it in. To be honest, we tend to see more of their mum, Nina, than him, on those winter Sunday mornings that all rugby parents love, because of all the stuff he's had on even before this England job.
"I was at West Park to speak to a couple of the coaches and funnily enough I had a bit of a chat with Lanny about what was going on with England and all the adverse publicity. He didn't let on to me what was about to be announced the next day, quite rightly. But the fact that he was up at West Park shows you what England are getting.
"He's an ex-schoolteacher at Kettlethorpe, down Wakefield way, and he's got the fundamentals of the sport. Junior rugby is an extension of parenting really, trying to instil those values in kids that they want for life, and that's the sort of thing Lanny's all about.
"He'd been a player at Leeds then he got put in charge of the academy and did a wonderful job – for a long time we had the flagship of Premier Rugby, bringing a lot of stuff across from the rugby league setup at the Leeds Rhinos. We had a good positive relationship with our schools, which isn't always the case, and Lanny was instrumental in setting up all of that."
But does that qualify him to command respect from the highly paid professionals who let England down so badly in New Zealand? "Just asking that question shows how much has changed," Bentley says. "Let's be honest, their image is in tatters. So what you'll get from Lanny is a return to what the fundamentals of the sport are about. It's like I've always said about footballers, the game doesn't owe these players anything, it's them that owe the game."
He receives a further character endorsement on the website of the club where his children have received their rugby education. "As predicted on this website on 20 November, Stuart Lancaster has been appointed as caretaker England coach. Most informed observers consider that Stuart's invaluable experience as assistant West Park Leeds Under-11s coach was the crucial factor in being selected for the top job."
