Who will be the be the next England coach?
Sunday 4 October 2015 14:07, UK
England were dumped out of the World Cup on Saturday night following a 33-13 defeat to Australia at Twickenham, making them the first hosts in the history of the competition to be eliminated before the knockout stage begins.
Stuart Lancaster's tenure, which runs until 2020, is bound to come under scrutiny and he is right to say he will wait until after next Saturday's match with Uruguay to decide on his future.
Stuart Barnes believes that if Lancaster resigns then Exeter's Rob Baxter should be the man to take his place, however Dean Ryan believes that England's process of picking an England coach needs an overhaul.
"This is not a pending thought, I spent most of the night lying awake wondering what the heck happened," explained Barnes.
"I would like to see an Englishman there but I want one who has someone above him with experience, someone who understands how the international game works.
"To me Rob Baxter is the one who has shown the greatest vision and Wayne Smith is a man who loves England.
"He [Smith] is here at the moment with New Zealand as defence coach and I would love to see him play a sort of fatherly role - maybe be the head man and let Baxter come through."
Selection process flawed
However Dean Ryan who has considerable coaching experience himself believes that England's selection process is fundamentally flawed and that questions should be asked regarding the people who are in charge of the process.
"I want to take a step back on the coaching thing," said the Worcester director of rugby who has also coached Gloucester and been part of the Scotland coaching team.
"Why are we just going to roll over and allow the same people who made the same decision to set the criteria for the next coach? At what stage do we ask them why they are they qualified to do that?
"We have gone cycle after cycle and what we want to do is look at the criteria for a successful England management?
"We have seen a lot of different ones from the Woodward model where we had Andy Robinson and Brian Ashton working underneath him to having both Andy and Brian being spat out the end for not being able to handle the main job. So what is the criteria and who sets it?
"My biggest concern is that the people who are doing the interviews have made the same mistakes time and time again.
"We need really qualified people who can define the model we want and what is going to work. Then we can go and find the best people in the world at it. I have strong beliefs that it should have an English thread but let's understand what we need first and I don't think we do at the moment.
"We can't look at the top of the Premiership and go 'they are doing really well, let's bring their coach in.'
"I think Rob [Baxter] has been outstanding but let's define what we need first before we suck him up and spit him out the other end."
