He's gone. He's actually bloody gone!

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

He's left behind a decent-ish hand for the next guy but could have left better. Could have left worse too mind. That's Lancaster in a nutshell over most of his reign; coulda done better, coulda done worse. An average coach with an average squad up against the big boys.

I hope he finds something useful to do and that his failure doesn't eat away at him too much.

Will the new coach be bound by limited EPS changes?
Otherwise I would say Lancaster has left a very good hand. We've all been talking about under-performing, wasting potential etc following the world cup - the implication of that being that a better coach could do more with the same.

 

[Peat]

Will the new coach be bound by limited EPS changes?
Otherwise I would say Lancaster has left a very good hand. We've all been talking about under-performing, wasting potential etc following the world cup - the implication of that being that a better coach could do more with the same.

I think we've talked a little too much about under-performing and not enough about the essential flaws of our player pool; the wasting potential mostly occurs before the England coach ever has a chance to do ought about it. I think Lancaster's not played his hand as well as he should have but it's never been a very good hand.

I would also point out that being a better coach and being a better England coach are not the same things. Once you're done negotiating culture clash, the media, player knowledge and so on, there is a fair amount of scope for a better coach to make an absolute hash of things here.

Finally - I would imagine he only has the 10 post-World Cup changes; throw in injury and that is sufficient though.

 

[Gavin]

I do really dislike some of the things that are being said about Lancaster. He won 80% of his Six Nations games and had a 60% win record during his entire international matches which is only 2nd to Woodward.

I honestly believe he brought a fantastic culture back to English rugby and a demand for good character - perhaps taken from his days as a PE teacher. Ultimately the Burgess gamble is the final nail in his coffin, however I really think the RFU wanted Burgess there so they could get 'value for money'. I am disappointed and would rather have a revamp of his coaching team than removing him.

If England want a world class coach I think Brian McLaughlin would be fantastic.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

80% stats in six nations means fuk all if you can't win it.

 

[ncurd]

80% stats in six nations means fuk all if you can't win it.

Pretty much this. One of Lancasters major flaws was not winning matches when we needed to.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

I think we've talked a little too much about under-performing and not enough about the essential flaws of our player pool; the wasting potential mostly occurs before the England coach ever has a chance to do ought about it. I think Lancaster's not played his hand as well as he should have but it's never been a very good hand.

I would also point out that being a better coach and being a better England coach are not the same things. Once you're done negotiating culture clash, the media, player knowledge and so on, there is a fair amount of scope for a better coach to make an absolute hash of things here.

Finally - I would imagine he only has the 10 post-World Cup changes; throw in injury and that is sufficient though.

Meh, I think that certainly in key positions - think Scrum half, openside flanker (this I would blame on cultural considerations), Hooker, Fly-half(until very recently) and inside centre - he was dealt a duff hand.

Scrum Half - Frequent switching between players and too much belief in Ben Youngs
Hooker - Meh, can't criticise him here; thankful to him for bringing in Tom Youngs.
Fly-half - Over persistence with Farrell when better options were apparent
Inside centre - endless changes and indecisiveness. Eastmond would have done the job.

Beyond these positions, I don't think Lancaster can have too many complaints about his hand relative to nations of similar strength in particular.

 

[Peat]

I do really dislike some of the things that are being said about Lancaster. He won 80% of his Six Nations games and had a 60% win record during his entire international matches which is only 2nd to Woodward.

I honestly believe he brought a fantastic culture back to English rugby and a demand for good character - perhaps taken from his days as a PE teacher. Ultimately the Burgess gamble is the final nail in his coffin, however I really think the RFU wanted Burgess there so they could get 'value for money'. I am disappointed and would rather have a revamp of his coaching team than removing him.

If England want a world class coach I think Brian McLaughlin would be fantastic.

Aye, fantastic culture - swearing at refs, drink driving, assaulting coppers, ignoring on the pitch indiscretions while punishing off the pitch indiscretions, and of course blabbing everything about your mates when it goes sour. Oh! Complaining about headphones. Pitching for the captain's job.

Although, given you just recommended McGlock, I'm honestly wondering if this is an elaborate joke.

 

[Wimero]

Whoever is appointed as head coach(I hope it's Eddie Jones)has a real tough job on his hands.The pool of players we have just don't have the skill sets that the AB,Aus,Bok players have.I can't think of any current England player that would be selected over his opposite number in any of these sides.Several wouldn't even make the squad.

 

[j'nuh]

I feel in mixed moods about this.

On the one hand, I really like Lancaster. I think he has some obvious strengths and he seems like a terribly nice person. Him losing his job is nothing to gloat about and I really feel for him. I hope the RFU give him a proper role that makes the most of his talents, rather than firing him or shuffling him somewhere into the background. He seems selfless enough to be the kind of person I want to be embedded into the heart of the RFU. English rugby needs to start looking at transformation, as clearly there is something wider afoot as to why England aren't achieving more despite all the resources, both at international and club level. Lancaster could be involved in reviewing this and implementing changes.

On the other hand, it was right for English rugby. I still feel that of all things, it was Lancaster's loyalty to his assistant coaches that proved his downfall. Putting confidence in your assistants to lead the coaching sessions and effectively run the selection is fine, as long as your assistants are the right people to be taking on this work. I think that Lancaster/Baxter/Shaun Edwards/Wayne Smith could have still been successful, because I think that Lancaster would have been delegating the work to the right people. It's just a shame that he tied his fortunes to his assistants by being unwilling to make the changes. I'd have been open to him staying on if he had a vision for restructuring his team, but his words seemed to suggest that he wanted to keep changes to a minimum and build on it.

So in the future, it's important that England get the entire coaching team right, not just the head coach. My hope is that a head coach is appointed as soon as possible so that there is enough time to scope out an entire team well in advance of the Six Nations. (Shaun Edwards is a good start.) But I also hope that if we don't have time for this, that the head coach doesn't feel that he needs to stick with any interim assistants that are used in the next Six Nations.

Aye, fantastic culture - swearing at refs, drink driving, assaulting coppers, ignoring on the pitch indiscretions while punishing off the pitch indiscretions, and of course blabbing everything about your mates when it goes sour. Oh! Complaining about headphones. Pitching for the captain's job.

Although, given you just recommended McGlock, I'm honestly wondering if this is an elaborate joke.

The difference is that these are incidents of one person acting out of line at any point, something that is hard to stamp out; players do have personal lives and you can't police them every hour of the day. He's stamped out the laddish team culture that surrounded the 2011 squad, which was the main issue.

And some of these incidents are hardly even bad. I still don't agree that Wood was pitching for Robshaw's job. I also don't think that these player leaks are such a terrible thing. (Whilst ideally they would inform the RFU as part of this review, I'm not sure I trust the workings of the RFU that these words alone would have the effect that I would like, whereas media attention would.)

 

[Boris1957]

The first of many to go ?

Lancaster was a decent bloke but sadly not yet cut out for the job in much the same way that Johnson wasn't ready when he took the Helm. It seems the post WC review whitewash has started and we are seeing exactly the same as the 2011 review. Manager/coach goes but everyone else is doing a sterling job so stays !!!!! We need a mass clearout at the top and that includes Rob Andrew, Ian Ritchie and probably Bill Beaumont. We also need Farrell and Catt out and maybe Rowntree too. We need to have a new head coach who has no hidden agenda or favourites who is able to see the wood for the trees and who has a proven track record both on the international and domestic stages. And we must never again use the excuse 'not enough experience' for some players whilst picking others who have extremely limited experience on the pitch and no positive impact when chosen. Unless we take drastic and positive action now we will have the same review situation post Japan 2019 and several more years in the wilderness. We are still paying for the error in letting Clive Woodward walk away post 2003 !!!!!

 

[Mattybuck]

Whoever is appointed as head coach(I hope it's Eddie Jones)has a real tough job on his hands.The pool of players we have just don't have the skill sets that the AB,Aus,Bok players have.I can't think of any current England player that would be selected over his opposite number in any of these sides.Several wouldn't even make the squad.

I think that is a bit harsh, we are certainly lacking in some areas, but have the ability to dominate in others. No point trying to be them, just beat them...

 

[McTallshort]

We are still paying for the error in letting Clive Woodward walk away post 2003 !!!!!

Now hold on, SCW won a WC but had no long term plan for the England team. He left in 2004 I believe knowing he had no one to replace the likes of Hill and Johnson.

 

[Peat]

The difference is that these are incidents of one person acting out of line at any point, something that is hard to stamp out; players do have personal lives and you can't police them every hour of the day. He's stamped out the laddish team culture that surrounded the 2011 squad, which was the main issue.

And some of these incidents are hardly even bad. I still don't agree that Wood was pitching for Robshaw's job. I also don't think that these player leaks are such a terrible thing. (Whilst ideally they would inform the RFU as part of this review, I'm not sure I trust the workings of the RFU that these words alone would have the effect that I would like, whereas media attention would.)

And effectively condoning a player who deliberately assaulted another player is far worse than any amount of laddish team culture, while the failure to stamp out indiscipline on the pitch meant we did worse than Johnson's team.

Argue about the nuts and bolts if you will - the cumulative effect was not a fantastic team culture.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

I do think people are making to much about Lancasters cultural changes.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

He's left behind a decent-ish hand for the next guy.

I'd simply ask who are the absolute nailed on starters against Scotland? In my book only Launch, B Youngs, May, Watson and prob Brown (although I'd be moving Watson to 15 ASAP). That leaves at least 10 positions with an element of doubt over them. It's not even like we're expecting a rash of retirements.

That's his legacy and it's a mess.

 

[Boris1957]

SCW had a plan but the 57 old f*rts poo poohed this which is why he walked. Still a black day for us and what have we achieved since ???

 

[Peat]

I'd simply ask who are the absolute nailed on starters against Scotland? In my book only Launch, B Youngs, May, Watson and prob Brown (although I'd be moving Watson to 15 ASAP). That leaves at least 10 positions with an element of doubt over them. It's not even like we're expecting a rash of retirements.

That's his legacy and it's a mess.

Alternately you can look at it and say that, conditioning and injuries dependent, there's only 3 positions where he'll struggle to find a good international with a decent bit of experience (2, 7, 12); that we've finally got a decent rake of World Class potential prospect; and that we have the following XV all 24 or under, which is a solid building block with all but 3 possessing international experience -

Watson, Nowell, Joseph, Tuilagi, Yarde, Ford, Spencer*; Vunipola, Cowan-Dickie, Thomas, Launchbury, Itoje*, Clifford*, Kvesic, Vunipola

* denotes the uncapped players.

I'd say that's decent-ish. There are few nailed-ons, it's true, but there are worse things than to have selection debates between very good players, although it's better to have World Class players shutting down the debate with very good players to back-up.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Lancaster was only ever supposed to be a caretaker manager post Johnson until someone better could be found; the problem is he did well in the 2012 6Ns by coming 2nd that the RFU thought why not give him the gig full time, mainly because he was a young English coach. So, it was as much the RFU's fault for selecting such a rookie coach 3 years ago; if Lancaster has gone, so should those who made the decision to hire him on a full time basis.

 

[j'nuh]

So the next head coach gets to decide on the futures of the current coaching team. Pretty harsh to give sacking coaches as the first assignment to the new coach. Also pretty harsh to have the current assistants waiting on news about their job for that long. Since the review is covering England's performances, I am not entirely certain why we aren't coming to a verdict on the assistant coaches as well as the head coach... I'd have said that there is more evidence to suggest Farrell should go than Lancaster. But oh well, hopefully the next head coach will bring in some new assistants.

I'd simply ask who are the absolute nailed on starters against Scotland? In my book only Launch, B Youngs, May, Watson and prob Brown (although I'd be moving Watson to 15 ASAP). That leaves at least 10 positions with an element of doubt over them. It's not even like we're expecting a rash of retirements.

That's his legacy and it's a mess.

Eh, you always get something like that when you bring in new coaches. There may be a lot of movement within the XV/23, but the wider squad will remain roughly the same. For example, I don't know who will start tighthead, but I'm certain it will be one of the players that Lancaster invested in (Cole, Wilson or Brookes).

Of Lancaster's favourites/WC squad, I anticipate the following will be at least involved somewhere around the next EPS:
Mako Vunipola
Probably Marler
Probably Tom Youngs
George
Cole
Brookes
Probably Wilson
Launchbury
Probably Lawes
Robshaw (perhaps not in the XV or as captain, but I'd be surprised if he was ditched from the entire wider squad)
Morgan
Billy Vunipola
Ben Youngs
Ford
Probably Farrell
Slade
Joseph
Tuilagi
May
Watson
Probably Nowell
Brown

 

[grumpybaldy]

I do really dislike some of the things that are being said about Lancaster. He won 80% of his Six Nations games and had a 60% win record during his entire international matches which is only 2nd to Woodward.

I honestly believe he brought a fantastic culture back to English rugby and a demand for good character

Spot on. I can still remember how frankly shaming English rugby and its players were. I didn't wear the England shirt for matches for years before Lancaster's new broom. We shouldn't forget there was a pride in it that Lancaster brought back through the approach he encouraged - a missing pride that had nothing to do with winning or losing matches, just about behavior and attitude; a pride that was recovered despite matches not being won - actually more important when you look at much of the rest of sport, particularly with today's 'Russian news'.