Next England Head Coach: Six Nations too soon for whoever gets the nod

Ralph Ellis
17 November 2015

Eddie Jones is now hot favourite to be England's next head coach

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Australian Eddie Jones has been backed into odds-on favourite to succeed Stuart Lancaster after the World Cup debacle. Ralph Ellis fears there's still too much muddled thinking at the RFU for any change to improve England's chance in the Six Nations...

"England last finished top of the Six Nations pile in 2011, and that is the only time they’ve won it since 2003. There simply isn’t the time for anybody to transform the group into winners in the 11 weeks before the tournament begins on February 6th."

It was in 2003 that England won the Rugby World Cup. Not only won it, but won it in Australia. Not only won it in Australia, but beat Australia in the final.

Unless since when I was at school they've changed how maths works, that makes it just 12 short years ago. It means many of the team have not long stopped playing, and still have that knowledge of how to go about becoming the best on the planet.

Come to that Sir Clive Woodward, who built that team brick by careful brick, is still around and talking sense and enthused with ideas about what English rugby needs.

All of which makes it all the more sad that the list of potential replacements for Stuart Lancaster is now populated only by overseas coaches.

Aussie Eddie Jones, who guided Japan to their spectacular victory over South Africa, is now the 1.68/13 favourite in the market to become Next England Head Coach, with well sourced reports today that the RFU have already made contact with him.

The 55-year-old is in Cape Town where he has just begun a three-year contract with the Stormers, but has hinted he'd find a way of walking out on that if chief executive Ian Ritchie firms up an offer.

Meanwhile reports in France say that South African Jake White, currently working for Montpellier, has also had the tap on the shoulder from the RFU and is next in line on their short list.

Then there is Michael Cheika, the man the powers that be at Twickenham really want, who has made it clear it would be a waste of time even talking to him. "I'm an Australian coaching Australia, it's like the dream and I want to do the best I can for as long as I can," he says.

Pity that the RFU don't want to have an Englishman coaching England and living the same dream. They say they want a world class coach to take over, ignoring the fact that they have one on their own doorstep already in Sir Clive. He might not want the job himself, but who would be better qualified to build a new coaching structure of the best English minds?

It isn't as if there are no options. Rob Baxter was rightly installed as favourite when Lancaster first left his job in recognition of the work he has done with Exeter Chiefs.

Yet the powers that be at Twickenham are ploughing forward with the idea that while we will go on refusing to pick a player who plies his trade outside of England, we'll only find a head coach from the other side of the world.

Four years after the last World Cup ended in disarray, we're emerging from another global competition in equal chaos. Yet for some reason the market for January's RBS Six Nations championship has England down as 3.052/1 favourites to be the outright winner. That has to be a bet to lay.

Regardless of who the RFU hand the head coach's job to, you can't escape the fact that England failed to get out of their group in a home World Cup, that they last finished top of the Six Nations pile in 2011, and that is the only time they've won it since 2003.

There simply isn't the time for anybody to transform the group into winners in the 11 weeks before the tournament begins on February 6.