Stuart Lancaster locates a drop of Southern comfort

Stuart Lancaster insists the ‘‘gap is closing'' between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres despite another summer series wipe-out.
England, Wales and Ireland failed to win a single game between them on their respective tours of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, although England prevented a complete drubbing by drawing the final Test against the Springboks in Port Elizabeth.
Wales and Ireland both suffered 3-0 whitewashes, but with a bit more luck and better composure and discipline four of the six games could easily have gone their way.
An upbeat Lancaster admits lessons were learned from an England perspective, but he sees plenty of reasons to be optimistic ahead of the autumn international series against Fiji, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.
He said: “All three Southern Hemisphere sides are different and pose their own threats.
“South Africa are unique in that six of the eight forwards in their pack are world-class ball carriers.
“Possession is key against them. If you give them the ball in your own 22 then it is hard to stop their power game.
“Australia are more of a footballing side and they defend differently to South Africa.
“New Zealand are different again in terms of their counter attack and strike running ability and the way they defend. They are a more ‘up and out' side.
“As you saw with ourselves, Wales and Ireland we are all still a little bit behind, but I feel the gap is closing.” Lancaster continued: “You have got to put the tour into context in that it comes at the end of an 11-month season if not 12 months.
“Some of the players went right the way through from a World Cup training camp last summer to the end of the South Africa tour.
“A good break won't do us any harm and the games in November, when they all come to our place at the end of their season, will be a good benchmark.
“It was definitely a case of lessons learned across the board – from them and from us.”
Speaking at Leeds's pre-season launch, where his former club announced a new three-year deal with property company The Skelwith Group, Lancaster insisted that England's own foundations were in good order, too, following the Series against Heyneke Meyer's South Africa tour.
“Going into the internationals if you look at our caps total, other than the last Test, it was 200-odd against a South Africa side with 500 or so.
‘‘We can't be pleased with losing two and drawing one, but overall we have developed a lot of experience and a lot of players have learnt and developed on the tour.”
Lancaster accepts that his first senior tour in charge of England was also hugely beneficial to him on a personal level.
He added: “It was a big tour for me personally. As a coach you can watch countless games and DVDs and speak to as many people as you like about players.
‘‘But nothing replicates actually physically coaching them and seeing them on the training field day-in, day-out and seeing them in the changing room before and after games to see how they deal with a victory or a loss.
“Previous tours and World Cups hadn't gone that well off the field so it was important that it went well in that regard, which clearly it did because we stayed off the front pages.
“Compared to other tours we were relatively tight in terms of the ‘leash' and we had to spend a lot of time together. But the players were brilliant. I can't speak highly enough about what they did.
“Managing the tour party was a big step. Forty-seven players and 30 management staff were involved; we played five games and held 20-odd press conferences, not least trying to win the actual games.
“It was great to be able to go out there and come back, I think, with our reputation enhanced.”
Next summer England will head to Argentina and Lancaster revealed that the RFU are looking to extend the tour from two matches to four even though he will be picking from a shallower player pool because of the British & Irish Lions tour to Australia.
“Hopefully we'll be expanding the tour to two Tests and two midweek matches as opposed to the current schedule of just the two Test matches,” he told The Rugby Paper.
“It is still very early stages. We have only discussed it internally. We've not really had a sit down with Argentina yet but that is going to happen over the course of the next few weeks.
“It'll certainly be interesting to see how Argentina receives it. Either way it'll be a good test whether we play a representative side like Argentina A or a strong club or provincial side.”
JON NEWCOMBE