1. What happens next?

Assuming the Rugby Football Union stops leaking, on Wednesday the Professional Game Board will present its recommendations to the RFU's board of directors after sifting through various reviews into England's World Cup campaign. It will not have to decide on the future of Martin Johnson or Brian Smith because the team manager and the attack coach have resigned. The futures of the other coaches – John Wells, Mike Ford, Graham Rowntree – will be decided and the remit of the board was to come up with the best candidate to take charge of England for the next four years. Given that the start of the Six Nations is little more than two months away, there is little time to appoint a head coach/manager and a full coaching team. A caretaker administration is likely, but the board will then have to decide how to go about making a full-time appointment. It is 14 years since the RFU appointed a coach after an interview process, but with a new chief executive due to be appointed next month, that is the probable outcome. The caveat is that with the RFU, anything can happen.

2. Will the way the RFU runs itself change?

A week on Friday the union's council will consider a far-reaching report by the legal firm Slaughter and May into governance. It recommends sweeping reforms designed to rid the governing body of its blazer culture, slashing the size of the council, cutting its powers and getting more people at the sharp end of the game, such as players, referees and officials from the Premiership clubs, on board. The ultimate decision on change will be down to the clubs at next year's annual general meeting, but the council will decide which recommendations – and they run to 14 pages – will be put to them: a two-thirds majority will be needed. Slaughter and May want the board of directors to be reduced to 11 and be given an in-built majority of executives and independent nonexecutive directors over elected representatives, six to five. Only by such a change, and by ending the feudal system of electing members of the council through counties, Oxbridge and the armed forces, is it argued that the RFU can leave the amateur era behind after a year of chronic bungling.

3. Won't the RFU need a chief executive to oversee all this?

The union hopes to announce its new chief executive on 16 December, more than six months after John Steele was sacked, but it is unlikely that he or she would be able to start work until well into the new year, depending on the length of their notice period. Given the toxic atmosphere at Twickenham and the fundamental need for change, the successful candidate will have to get involved straight away, even if not from behind a desk. Sponsors need appeasing, the machinery for appointing Johnson's successor will need to be erected quickly. It says everything for the way the RFU has been managed that such a crucial appointment still has to be made and the CEO will have to cut through the politics immediately, putting strategy ahead of personality.

4. Who is the new coach likely to be?

There are two strands of thought. The first is that England, given the chaos during the World Cup revealed in the leaked reviews, need someone experienced in the international game. That would rule out an Englishman, apart from Sir Clive Woodward who has said he is not interested in the job. Those who favour going for someone from overseas such as Nick Mallett or Jake White – and England have dabbled with the idea in the past, approaching the likes of Graham Henry and Warren Gatland without following up initial inquiries – feel it would get rid of the vexed issue of whether the head coach should answer to a performance director. Those who want to see a coach from the Premiership appointed, such as Jim Mallinder, also want a performance director installed – Woodward – who would be hands-on and offer the guidance Johnson lacked throughout his 40 months in charge, not that he sought it. In other words, there is a real danger that the appointment will be made for political reasons, rather than as the result of an exhaustive process to find the best man.

5. Will Rob Andrew survive?

Andrew is one of the last men standing at Twickenham and the calls for his resignation have become deafening. He is blamed for leaving Johnson to face everything alone in New Zealand, but the RFU's board of directors had decided that Johnson would not answer to a performance director during the World Cup: he would stand alone. Andrew had been demoted from elite rugby director to operations director after Steele's departmental review, and asked to continue with his former duties after the botched hunt for a performance director. His authority had been stripped from him and he is being blamed for something for which the board of directors, as constituted back in June and July, should be answerable. Andrew is being judged on the performance of the England team – post Six Nations – even though it was only a small part of his remit as elite rugby director. England's record at age‑group level is the best in Europe and the supply line to the England team is functioning well. He receives no credit for that and his chief failing in the eyes of his detractors is that he is not Woodward. Get him out, the argument goes, and Woodward will be prepared to come back. Politics again.

6. What will the England team look like at the start of the Six Nations?

More Grange Hill than Dad's Army. Whoever is in charge will be looking to 2015. Mike Tindall will not return even if he wins his appeal against his expulsion from the elite squad, Jonny Wilkinson is likely to be granted his wish to enjoy his life in Toulon, Lewis Moody has retired from international rugby and other seasoned campaigners, such as Simon Shaw, Steve Thompson, Mark Cueto and Nick Easter will only survive if there is a dearth of candidates in their positions. The new coach will be under pressure to emulate Wales and name a young captain who has no baggage, such as Tom Wood. England are Six Nations champions, but the reviews show there needs to be a sea-change in attitude. And while it may have been the most awful of years on and off the field in English rugby, the talent is there. It needs to be properly harnessed. The outlook is anything but bleak if the right decisions are made for the right reasons.