JEREMY GUSCOTT
OUTSPOKEN AND UNMISSABLE… EVERY WEEK
WHEN it comes to England head coaches I used to think that it was the best man for the job, whether English, British, or any nationality. However, I can see the benefits of having an English coach. It says that we have the confidence we have got coaches who are as good as anyone out there.
Many English coaches will also have coached in the Premiership recently, which means they will have a very good knowledge of the players they can select from, which is very important.
A lot has been said recently about the necessity for any England head coach to have had previous international experience – but I am not a subscriber to that view. Just because you have only been a domestic coach does not mean that you do not have the attributes. Everyone has to start somewhere, and in the same way that players have to make the jump from top club level to become internationals, the same applies to coaches.
If you look at business, when companies recruit a chief executive they frequently come from other companies within this country where they have been successful. There are obviously also instances where people are promoted to chief executive from within a business.
Even so, I would not be shouting from the rooftops about the coach having to be English, because if the policy has teething problems it means the coach and the union become an easy target for the media.
There are also English coaches who have a lot of experience who are working outside the country, like Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards. A quick scan of who is available shows a couple of non-English Premiership/international coach candidates like Mark McCall and Conor O'Shea. You have to put Exeter's Rob Baxter in the mix, although every time he is asked about making the move to international coaching he does not seem too fussed.
Then there are up and coming coaches like Alex Sanderson at Sale, George Skivington at Gloucester, as well as Joe Worsley at Castres and Graham Rowntree at Munster, who could become assistant coaches.
Then there are the big overseas names like Warren Gatland, Scott Robertson, Jake White, and of course, Rassie Erasmus. Having won the World Cup in the way he did in 2019 with South Africa, no one can doubt that Erasmus has got the credentials, but his Lions tour video speech last summer won't have done him any favours.
I cannot imagine that there is anyone with international coaching ambition who does not want this England job, because it's an absolute beauty – and sometime, like Clive Woodward did, someone is going to work out how to do it, and who to do it with. The key factor, then, is to have the right players available at the right time, and when all that comes together they will have massive success.
Timing plays a huge part in life, and my feeling is that if Woodward had the job now he would not have the calibre of player to choose from that he did leading into 2003. That's why I said last week that I don't think anyone at the moment could do a much better job than Eddie Jones.
“If Engand come knocking it would be a very hard choice for Farrell to make ”
Even so, in terms of scale it is a pretty big challenge for England to get anywhere near France by 2023 World Cup. England were competitive in Paris, but if both teams are at their best there is a 20-point gap, and the only way that England could breach that is if they found three or four outstanding players to bring in.
We understand that the RFU's plan is for Jones' successor to be integrated sooner than ever before by being announced ahead of the 2023 World Cup. Good luck with that! In the end it is all about contracts, and the RFU will be lucky to buy out all the coaches it wants if they are still in contract.
The biggest difficulty that the RFU faces is to get all the contracts aligned so that their head coach can either retain assistant coaches or choose the new ones he wants.
Andy Farrell has a great deal of experience having worked with Stuart Lancaster as an England assistant coach, and then done the same with Joe Schmidt in Ireland. Farrell has had good success since he has taken over as Ireland head coach, he is still young, and I believe his family are settled in Ireland. He is also in charge of a very talented squad that should see itself as a semi-final side. If he gets to the semi-finals it would be further than any other Ireland coach has gone, and if England come knocking it would be a very hard choice for him to make.
He is a man-of-his-word type of guy, and I would be very surprised if the Irish are not very committed to holding on to him. They will know what a good coach they've got.
Shaun Edwards is seen as the best defensive coach in the world, and the question is whether he wants to be a head coach, or to continue to be what he is. Being such an influence in defence might be all that Shaun requires. Just as some players don't want to be captain of the team, Shaun as a coach might feel that the influence he has as a defence coach is reward enough.
It is a lot easier to see someone as the head coach once they have been a head coach somewhere else – so it is easier to see Farrell as head coach rather than Edwards.
Steve Borthwick is one of the other names that comes at the top of any new England head coach discussion. He and Eddie Jones did a great job together with Japan, and he has shown as a 2017 Lions assistant coach, and since taking over at Leicester, that he is quite an operator.
Borthwick is not the most charismatic in front of the camera, but, while there is a media job to be done, that should not be the main priority of the head coach. There are more important jobs for him to do, and his mission is to coach the team to success – not talk it to success.
O'Shea has coached at international level, and he may still have aspirations in that direction. The difference between England's resources and Italy's are as wide as the Grand Canyon, and given his role as RFU performance director he will know all about the future talent coming through in England.
McCall has coached a Saracens club side which is an internationalstrength team, and has been drawn from a number of different countries. He has been part of establishing a brilliant set up and a playing culture at Saracens which has been hugely successful.
However, he and other Premiership coaches would find that the biggest deficit is the lack of time you get to prepare at international level compared to club rugby – and it is a big hurdle that you have to understand.
Gatland, White, and Nick Mallett all have track records that qualify them. Mallett has been out of coaching for a while, but if any of them had a clear run I don't think that they would do a bad job.
I would be surprised if Lancaster came back for another crack at it because it's rare you get a second chance. I don't know if he wants to do that type of England job again because what Lancaster enjoys is pure coaching, and he seems to be in his element with Leinster.
International rugby is a difficult challenge anywhere if you lose more than you win, and that is very much the case with England. The other side of the coin is that England have a very good record at Twickenham, so there is a bonus, and if you get it right it's one of the greatest jobs in rugby.
