The World Cup was an epic shot in black and white. New Zealand played the leading role, while England ended on the cutting room floor, the black of the winners contrasting with the white of the hosts. Live and Let Die.
The All Blacks were superb against Australia in the final. For 70 minutes, Twickenham was hit by a blackout: from the moment Keven Mealamu led the most menacing of hakas that was totally in sync, New Zealand played at a level no other side could match. It was to the Wallabies’ credit that they clung on for so long but they were up against opponents who were not only outstanding, but knew they were, at ease with each other and comfortable on the biggest stage of all. There were none of the nerves of 2011, only the polished, ruthless assurance of an assassin.
Whatever the review into England’s World Cup campaign comes up with, it will not be able to claim that the hosts should have been a match for the All Blacks, even with the home advantage, that did not count for enough against Wales and Australia. The tournament reflected the world rankings: New Zealand are some way ahead of a chasing pack who are separated by very little.
For two days after the final, attention was lavished on the likes of Dan Carter, Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith, who had all made their final appearances on the international field. After the holders had left, the Toulon flanker Steffon Armitage was quoted as saying he felt insulted by comments from some England players that it would not have been good for squad morale if the rule excluding players from the national squad who did not play in the Premiership had been lifted in the case of the former London Irish forward.
Armitage has generated considerable media support in the past couple of years, used often as a stick with which to beat the England head coach, Stuart Lancaster, whose job hinges on the review that is due to report on 17 November.The review itself has come under attack for being too in-house and too likely to be a whitewash, never mind that extremely rare is the media organisation whose response to a scandal within it is not always to conduct the investigation internally and under strict secrecy. At least the RFU’s review has a modicum of independence, a route it was not obliged to take.
The Armitage agenda shows the lack of maturity polluting the English game. Carter, Nonu and Smith have not retired from international rugby. They have joined clubs in France and by so doing have made themselves ineligible to play for the All Blacks because they will not be with one of the country’s five Super Rugby franchises next season. It is their choice, just as Armitage knew the consequences when he signed a new contract with Toulon, so where was the condemnation of the New Zealand Rugby Union?
Who here was saying how four years ago how disgraceful it was that New Zealand, with all their injury problems at outside-half during the World Cup, did not summon Nick Evans from Harlequins? Did Evans complain? He had made the decision, not the All Blacks, and while the RFU gave itself an out with the exceptional circumstances clause, it was interpreted as meaning calling on someone outside the Premiership in an injury crisis when all the options within the elite and the Saxons squads had been exhausted.
A problem for the RFU is that, no matter what the review turns up, keeping Lancaster on will attract condemnation in certain parts of the media, and elsewhere, but that would be the same whatever appointment was made unless Sir Clive Woodward was given a role in the set-up. The man who masterminded the 2003 World Cup success has haunted the national set-up ever since, with his successors judged on his achievements.
Unless someone has a Tardis that can transport the game back to 2000, even Woodward would be hard-pushed to come near to repeating the success he achieved, not least England’s mastery for a couple of years over Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Where is the Martin Johnson of today, the Jonny Wilkinson, the Lawrence Dallaglio, the Neil Back, the Richard Hill, the Matt Dawson, the Will Greenwood, the Jason Robinson, the Phil Vickery, the Ben Kay, the Mike Catt? It had started to go wrong for Woodward a few months after the World Cup triumph, with Johnson retired and Wilkinson injured, and he resigned, taking his reputation with him.
It was one of Lancaster’s problems in the World Cup that he had many very good players but very few great ones. Manu Tuilagi should have become one of the latter but struggled for fitness, Dylan Hartley kept seeing red and Dan Cole stalled after the 2013 Lions tour, missing virtually a year with a neck injury.
There are a number of players in Lancaster’s squad who look to have the potential to move beyond the very good, Joe Launchbury, George Ford, Jonathan Joseph, Anthony Watson, Jonny May, Billy Vunipola and George Kruis among them, but as Woodward asked when making his resignation speech in 2004, is the Premiership the ideal breeding ground for Test players?
When the RFU concludes its review into the World Cup campaign, it should then commission an independent inquiry into the professional game in England. One of the points of reference should be whether the RFU is receiving value for money in its elite player agreement with Premiership Rugby, with the current deal due for renewal in the summer and at considerably greater cost than eight years ago.
In those eight years, there have been precious few public falling outs between the RFU and the Premiership, a remarkable improvement on what had gone on before, but in the two World Cups played in the term of the agreement England, the finalists in 2007, have been knocked out in the quarter-finals and then, for the first time, despite being at home, failed to clamber out of the group. At £180,000-a-pop for each player in the squad, it’s not much of a return.
The RFU needs to be satisfied that the Premiership clubs have no ambitions beyond the tournaments they play in and organise. There were suggestions they wanted a say in the appointment of the England head coach but would they be happy to allow the RFU to vet the 12 directors of rugby/head coaches in the Premiership?
England, like France, have never had a non-national as head coach. One very good reason for that is that they are the only two major countries in the world that operate a club system, one where the national side does not come first on its own. For all the talk about England needing an experienced head coach, it also helps to have first-hand knowledge of the different way, to the southern hemisphere and Celtic countries at least, the game in the country operates.
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