Graham Henry has been casting aspersions over the state of English rugby © Getty Images

Chris Rattue, of the New Zealand Herald, provides his take on Graham Henry's recent tendency to pass on words of advice - whether they are requested or otherwise...

"Ooooh, what fun.

Winning a Rugby World Cup not only restores the economy and enables us to enjoy a few street parades, but we also get to sling advice around the world with a greatly reduced risk of getting a lot of muck slung back.

Gone are the days when Kiwi rugby-ites had to duck the head down as the sporting world pointed out, sometimes quite pointedly, that our specialist subject was messing up the World Cup. Sir Graham Henry has emerged from his summer hols to detail a few faults in the English, those losers who haven't won the Webb Ellis since way back in 2003.

Henry is bang on the mark with one point. England play with too much caution and fear. The English see the game as static huddles that eliminate glaring stuff ups, while in the process creating one giant stuff up.

However, his assertion that England are world champions at wasting talent is up for serious challenge considering our constant World Cup failures. New Zealand has a decent history of genuine talent-wasting when you consider that rugby is now a World Cup-centric activity, and Henry - having blown it once - came perilously close to blowing it again against a dishevelled French side in last year's Eden Park final."

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs talks to Graham Henry about his misgivings over Stuart Lancaster's approach to discipline.

"Graham Henry, New Zealand’s World Cup-winning coach, has warned England’s interim coach, Stuart Lancaster, that his zero tolerance approach to ill discipline in his squad will end in failure.

Delon Armitage became the latest player to fall foul of Lancaster’s crackdown, when the London Irish full-back was expelled from the England Saxons squad on Monday following his arrest for alleged assault in a Torquay nightclub in the early hours of Sunday.

Harlequins scrum-half Danny Care, who had been expected to rival his Leicester counterpart Ben Youngs for a place in the England starting line-up to face Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday, was also dropped from the senior elite squad last month following his arrest for drink driving on New Year’s Day."

The Independent's Chris Hewett assess England's chances of dispatching Scotland come Saturday.

"England's ambitious new group of Six Nations contenders were subjected to what the coaching fraternity call a "spike" in training yesterday: in other words, they set about each other with meaning as a way of cranking up the emotional heat ahead of the perilous meeting with Scotland at Murrayfield this weekend. Afterwards, Graham Rowntree had what must have appeared to some as a "spike" in honesty, even though the one-time international prop has a well-earned reputation for telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Asked how he thought the Scots might react to being Calcutta Cup favourites for the first time in many moons, the forwards coach replied: "When you look at where we've been – the unspeakable past – they'll be licking their lips. Scotland always save some of their passion for us, don't they? But those are the emotions that drive you. Playing a big match like this, away from home, against opponents who are expected to beat you? I envy the players."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy assess the future of Delon Armitage.

"London Irish will give serious consideration to releasing troubled England full back Delon Armitage at the end of this season, even if he does not reach a deal to join Toulon in France.

Exiles coach Toby Booth has launched an internal club investigation into the events leading up to Armitage's arrest for alleged assault outside a Torquay nightclub in the early hours of last Sunday."

The Guardian's Donald McRae talks to England coach Stuart Lancaster about his coaching philosophy.

"As we move into our second hour together, after a first that has shown Stuart Lancaster to be impressively engaging and thoughtful, we finally reach a question that makes England's interim rugby coach hesitate. Until now he has been fluid and passionate. Lancaster has spoken persuasively of the need to transform the culture around the damaged England squad and of his determination to "reconnect" his players with the grassroots of the game.

He has also underlined his belief that the foundations of England's team need to be relaid, and that a new generation of young players should be trusted. And he has offered a simple reply to the obvious point that such changes require time: "Of course they do."

Yet Lancaster knows he will probably have no more than three games in this year's Six Nations to win himself the permanent job he craves with England. His first match in charge is on Saturday, at Murrayfield, as England travel to Scotland for a fixture marked by a rivalry as ancient as it is fierce. So the next basic query makes him pause and, briefly, agonise over the right answer."

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary looks at the state of Delon Armitage's career after his brush with the law.

"Delon Armitage’s England career looks to be over after the London Irish full-back was arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning for alleged assault in a Torquay nightclub.

He was released on bail after being interviewed by Devon and Cornwall police who responded to an incident in which a local man received a split lip following an altercation.

Armitage, a troubled soul during a 12-month period that has seen him serve bans for four different offences, was summarily suspended from the England Saxons squad.

The news cast a shadow over what was intended to be the upbeat announcement of Harlequins’ flanker, Chris Robshaw, as England captain for at least the opening two matches of the RBS Six Nations championship. The ethical clean-up of English rugby has encountered another blockage."

The Daily Mail's Rob Wildman looks at Chris Robshaw's school days.

"From a teenage prop to the first England captain under interim coach Stuart Lancaster. That’s the story of Chris Robshaw’s rise through the ranks.

When Robshaw enrolled at Millfield School - the famous Somerset sporting institution - his strength and mobility stood out.

‘We did not have anyone else for prop,’ was Jonathan Brimacombe’s assessment of his new pupil aged 14.

‘He had a very good build for it, but as he was he was very mobile, he had as much an influence in the front row as he would have had if he had played in the back row. Chris did eventually gravitate to back row but prop is where he started.’"

The Daily Mail's Luke Benedict talks to those who know new interim England head coach Stuart Lancaster.

John Rutherford (Former Scotland fly-half)

"Stuart was a really conscientious guy. He was always interested in the technicalities of the game and tactics. The only reason he never played for Scotland's senior side was because in that generation there were a lot of very talented back-row players. When he got the job I had a giggle - it's quite something when an ex-Scotland player gets the England job!"

Phil Davies (Former Wales second row who was director of rugby at Leeds)

"Leeds he filled a player's role, a captain's role, a manager's role. He was capable of all types of guises. He was not the biggest player, but he was intelligent and had a big heart. We had similar values, both liked to play attacking, attractive rugby and both shared a similar belief in the importance of a work ethic."

England Saxons fly-half Billy Twelvetrees tells the Guardian's Rob Kitson why he is leaving Leicester Tigers for Gloucester.

"I just felt I wasn't getting the opportunity to play 12 as much as I'd like to. I spoke to [Gloucester's] Bryan Redpath and liked his philosophy.

"I also felt I'd get more opportunity to play 12 for Gloucester. It's nothing against the way Leicester do things, it's just my personal preference. Twelve is the position in which I feel most comfortable and where I've always had my best games, from mini-rugby upwards."

If could all have been so different for Stuart Lancaster had he followed his Scotland career... © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Alasdair Reid unearths the story of when Stuart Lancaster was pulling on the blue jersey of Scotland.

"They were young, they were Scottish, they had dreams. And for some members of the Scotland Under-19 team which lined up against Italy in Ayr in April 1989, those dreams came true.

Doddie Weir, Stuart Reid and Graham Shiel became stalwarts of the full Scotland side over the next 10 years. But life took a rather different course for one of their team-mates.
Not that anyone could have predicted what the future might hold for young Stuart Lancaster of Wakefield.

He was a stranger to most of the Scotland Under-19 side, never having played for the country of his mother's birth at any other level. But if he also had an ambition to get to Murrayfield then at least he now knows that it is about to be fulfilled.”"

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary talks to a bullish Delon Armitage following the London Irish man's demotion to the England Saxons.

"Delon Armitage has hit back at comments made about him by Andy Robinson, saying he was angered to have been labelled “arrogant” by the Scotland head coach.

Robinson cited the England No15 for a dangerous tackle on Chris Paterson in the World Cup, adding that he would not have done so if the tackle had been made by England captain Lewis Moody.

Armitage, who was banned for one week as a result, said he felt “victimised” and branded by reputation, and he expressed annoyance that he had been singled out by Robinson on grounds of his personality.

“Of course it did [anger me],” Armitage said. “If ever I were a manager, I wouldn’t be throwing out comments like that. I wouldn’t be impressed with myself. It’s not what you expect.”

Ben Foden may have to choose between country and the birth of his child © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Ian Chadband talks to England fullback Ben Foden about the ultimate dilemma he faces.

"England are about to play a Six Nations Grand Slam decider against Ireland in March just as his fiancée, pop star Una Healy, due to give birth to their baby daughter only four days later, suddenly goes into labour.

What to do? Stand by his country or his woman? Foden’s face crumples into a pained smile.
“Yes, my missus being Irish, she might be pushing that little extra for an early delivery,” he jokes. Err, at least, it sounds like a joke.

“Obviously, it would be terrible timing but there’s only a certain amount of times I’ll play for England and it’d be a hard call. It depends on how my emotions were, because if head and heart weren’t on the game, there would be no point in playing.”"

Brian Moore, in his column for the Daily Telegraph, provides his take on the England captaincy debate.

"Tom Wood’s absence through injury has made Stuart Lancaster’s decision about the England captaincy more difficult and his problems demonstrate a wider, unwelcome, issue with which he will also battle.

Lancaster is faced with decades of English tradition which lionises and vilifies any player awarded the captaincy in equally undeserved measure. This cult of the captain has sometimes created a fiefdom and an assumption that the captaincy is almost a personal possession. So, unless he eschews this illogical and occasionally harmful tradition, his choice for the game against Scotland on Feb 4 is going to attract an inordinate amount of comment.

The thing is that before you consider any player’s captaincy credentials, whether he has the makings of a leader and so on, you have to examine his playing credentials. If the latter are found wanting, the former should not come into consideration.”

Chris Hewett, of the Independent, looks at one of the most remarkable rises in stock this season.

"England's candidates for Six Nations duty gathered yesterday at the new red-rose base on the outskirts of Leeds, most of them bruised after another weekend of European activity. Some were suffering emotionally too, as the extent of the Premiership's embarrassment began to register. Of the 16 knockout places available in the Heineken and Amlin Challenge Cups, only four have been filled by clubs from the world's biggest, richest union – and three of those will play in the back-room competition, rather than the shop-window tournament.

The Harlequins players, including national captain-elect Chris Robshaw, were licking more wounds than most after blowing their Heineken Cup chances in the west of Ireland, but the Londoners were at least lifted by developments at England Saxons level. Matt Hopper, the 26-year-old centre who has spent most of his rugby life scuffing around the club scene in Devon and Cornwall, was promoted to the second-string squad and has a decent chance of playing the biggest game of his career against a powerful Irish Wolfhounds side in his home city of Exeter on Saturday evening.”

Connacht proved to be Harlequins' undoing on Friday evening © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary looks at the mission ahead for Stuart Lancaster after a difficult weekend for the English clubs in Europe.

"The England players will undergo medical testing when they gather at their Weetwood Hall base in Leeds on Monday. If Stuart Lancaster thought that would be a routine assignment when he scheduled it in the diary, then it no longer is.

Not only has he a rotten run of injuries to catalogue, he also has, after a torrid 10 days of Heineken Cup rugby, the deteriorating health of English rugby to consider.

He can be thankful that he has been spared any more calamity on the injury front. There were no serious mishaps on this closing weekend of European group action.

If only the well-being of the English sides was in such reasonable shape. Two of the Premiership’s leading lights, Northampton and Leicester, shipped 92 points in two matches against two Irish provinces, Ulster and Munster."

Charlie Hodgson is ready to finally step out of the long shadow of Jonny Wilkinson and take charge of England's backline, according to Robert Kitson in The Guardian.

"Top-level rugby can be harsh and unforgiving, even on a good day. It is harder still for slightly built creative types prone to introspection.

"Imagine driving hundreds of miles to England training knowing the coaches doubt your defence, that you have no chance of starting and that your club will struggle without you.

"Then imagine being steamrollered by a rampant All Black team and brutally informed your Test career is over. Charlie Hodgson can talk you ruefully through it all, and more."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy meets abrasive Northampton flanker Calum Clark following the youngster's call up to England's Six Nations squad.

"He also acquired a reputation for volatility and that trait was exposed in 2008 when he was sent off for punching in the junior World Cup final against New Zealand. While he recovered sufficiently to lead the national Under 20 side a year later, the incident left its mark.

"It was a big lesson," said Clark. "I came in for a bit of flak which is how it should be. It wasn't my finest hour but I learned from it and it won't be a feature of my game again. I play on the edge still. I get a few yellow cards but they are more technical now. I've proved that I can keep a lid on it. There was doubt, but I've proved I can."

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs talks to David Strettle about his first impressions of new England coach Stuart Lancaster.

"Saracens wing David Strettle has given a ringing endorsement of Stuart Lancaster’s attempts to bring “belief and excitement” back to the England squad.

Strettle added the interim head coach should be a leading contender to get the job on a permanent basis if the team are successful in the Six Nations.

The Rugby Football Union has appointed headhunters Odgers to lead the recruitment search for a permanent successor to Martin Johnson and hopes to make an appointment before the end of the Six Nations, placing pressure on Lancaster to deliver results quickly if he is to make a strong case for getting the job himself.

However, Strettle, whose fine form for Saracens in recent weeks has thrust him into contention for the left wing position for the Six Nations opener against Scotland at Murrayfield on Feb 4, believes Lancaster has already taken a big step towards securing the job for the longer term."

Dylan Hartley wants the RFU to take the game to the north of England © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs and Brendan Gallagher talk to Dylan Hartley and Jim Mallinder about the RFU's proposal to take the game to the North of England.

"Dylan Hartley would love the opportunity to play a Six Nations or autumn international in the north of England if the Rugby Football Union moves a Test away from Twickenham.

The Daily Telegraph revealed on Thursday that the RFU is considering a plan to switch an England 2013 Six Nations fixture to a venue in the North as part of a radical plan to regenerate the sport in the region ahead of hosting the 2015 World Cup.

Hartley played in the most recent England match staged in the North when a second string side defeated Argentina at Old Trafford in June 2009. He would be happy to do so again.

“Why not? It was pretty good at Old Trafford two years ago when we played the Pumas,” Hartley said. “Twickenham is the home of English rugby but, if you want to play for England, it doesn’t make a huge difference where you play. The only thing that really counts is that the home crowd is behind you.”’

England lock Courtney Lawes, talking to The Daily Telegraph's Oliver Brown, says it's time for England to do their talking on the pitch after their infamous World Cup campaign.

"Courtney Lawes, just like all present in that Queenstown bar one fateful September evening, would rather forget about the farrago that was 'Dwarfgate’..

He takes the view that the entire episode at the Altitude nightclub, featuring Mike Tindall’s blonde 'friend’ and a generous quotient of dwarves, forms an obsession peculiar to journalists. The Six Nations is coming, time to move on. Trouble is, though, that the fall-out from the night — so richly expressive of the stupidity of sports stars on tour — resonates to this day.

It was even raised, in oblique fashion, at the Golden Globes. Peter Dinklage, who won the award for best supporting TV actor during Sunday night’s ceremony, urged the worldwide audience to look up the name of Martin Henderson on Google."

The Guardian's Rob Kitson assesses Stuart Lancaster's future as England coach following the press briefing on Tuesday.

"Stuart Lancaster has effectively been given only three games to stake his claim as England's permanent head coach. The Rugby Football Union says it expects to have identified its first-choice candidate by the end of the Six Nations, a timescale which would appear to reduce Lancaster's chances unless the caretaker's new-look squad makes a good start against Scotland, Italy and Wales.

Twickenham officials admit they have been impressed by Lancaster's words and deeds since he was installed as interim coach last month but it seems Nick Mallett and Wayne Smith are still their preferred options to take England through to the 2015 World Cup. Had the union ruled out any appointment before mid-April it would have indicated a serious desire to retain Lancaster in the job for the long haul."

Steve James, of the Daily Telegraph, looks at the remarkable rise of Ben Morgan.

"Last week I interviewed Ben Morgan. He’s the No 8 playing for the Scarlets in Llanelli, who might well make his England debut very soon.

He’s in the Six Nations squad anyway. And he has got an interesting tale to tell. He’s a Gloucestershire boy who went to Wales, firstly at Merthyr Tydfil, to make his mark in professional sport.

It’s a similar path that I trod many moons ago. But at least Gloucestershire County Cricket Club offered me a contract, if only in a face-saving move to respond to Glamorgan’s offer.

When Morgan left Gloucestershire in 2008, unable to make it regularly into the Cinderford team who were then in National League Three South, nobody seemed too bothered."

Former England and Lions stalwart cut an impressive frame in South Africa in 1997 © Getty Images

The Sunday Telegraph's Paul Ackford wonders whether the English game has lost a key element?

"Twenty-odd years ago England used to send their biggest players out on to the pitch first. As the changing room door opened, especially in the bear pit that was the Parc des Princes, Dooley, Richards, Teague and Skinner followed Carling into the tunnel.

"It was team policy, a deliberate attempt to intimidate the opposition by sending the roughest, toughest, ugliest brutes out at the head of the queue.

"Ian McGeechan was of the same opinion later in the decade when he appointed Martin Johnson to lead the 1997 Lions to South Africa. McGeechan wanted Springbok skipper Gary Teichmann to look up into the face of the taller Johnson at the coin toss before each of the three Tests. It was that elemental.

"On Wednesday Stuart Lancaster revealed the forwards who will do battle on England’s behalf in the forthcoming Six Nations and on the tour to South Africa in the summer. With the greatest respect to that bunch, when compared to the likes of Dooley, Johnson, Cotton, Teague, Blakeway, Colclough, Chilcott, Grewcock, Dallaglio and the rest, there isn’t an enforcer among them, which begs the question: where have all the hard men gone?"

England’s caretaker rugby coach, Stuart Lancaster, has asked a former army corporal shot in the face while serving in Iraq to address his squad at their Yorkshire training camp next week. The Sunday Times' David Walsh talks to Simon Brown (via paywall).

"Asked what his message to Lancaster’s men would be, Brown told The Sunday Times: “You guys are the cream of the cream of English rugby, you are young, you are talented, player for player you can stand against the best players in the world. But you are also young and you need to learn. So why not go out there and just show what you can do. Be proud to wear your national shirt. Rugby is fun and you are earning money doing what you love to do. How many of us wouldn’t offer up limbs to have the opportunity to put on our national shirt, and you guys have that opportunity.”

"Brown was invited to speak to Warrington’s rugby league team before a 2010 Challenge Cup match, which Warrington won. The club’s coach, Tony Smith, said: “It helped keep us grounded. He’s lost sight in one eye and most of the sight in the other eye and, when you hear those sort of stories, it really comes home to roost. I’m not saying [victory] was all down to Simon Brown but it was worthwhile.”

"Lancaster has also asked Dave Brailsford from cycling and Hugh Morris, managing director of the England and Wales Cricket Board, to address the players during the five-day training camp at Leeds."

The Daily Mail's Alan Fraser talks to England new boy Ben Morgan about his battle with illness.

"Ben Morgan, one of the fresh faces of the England rugby revolution, might have been forced to limp away from the sport after suffering from a disease which previously struck down the likes of Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes.

Morgan, 22, the Scarlets No 8 who has opted for England over Wales, fell victim to the Osgood-Schlatter disease while in his mid-teenage years.

Osgood-Schlatter attacks children between the ages of nine and 16, more commonly boys active in sport. The condition coincides with periods of growth spurts and can be accompanied by such intense knee and/or shin pain that even walking up and down stairs is difficult.

Gerrard and Scholes overcame the disease to become the heart and soul of English football for a decade and more. Morgan will hope to make a comparable progression in rugby."

The Independent's Chris Hewett provides his take on the battle for the England centre berths and analyses Brad Barritt's chances.

"A question: who has the most difficult task in English rugby? Perhaps it is Stuart Lancaster, the caretaker Test coach, who has plenty on his mind as he attempts to restore the red-rose nation's credibility as a major force in the sport following the many and varied failings of the Martin Johnson regime.

Maybe it is Ian Ritchie, the governing body's incoming chief executive – a position offering the kind of job security once associated with marriage to Henry VIII. Just conceivably, the award should go to those charged with keeping Danny Care, the troubled Harlequins scrum-half, away from the rozzers."

Graham Rowntree is a fan of the move to the North © Getty Images

Shaun Edwards, writing in his column for the Guardian, believes Stuart Lancaster has organised the perfect preparation for their trip to Murrayfield by taking England to the north of England.

"Taken at face value it looks a gamble. Nine new faces, four more with just a single cap and 13 changes from the World Cup squad of 30. Under anyone other than Stuart Lancaster it might be going some to knock the 32 men England's interim coach named on Wednesday into a team – and in less than two weeks.

Actually, from 23 January, when the squad gather in Leeds to the first day of the Six Nations, when England play Scotland at Murrayfield, probably amounts to only 10 days proper training for those England guys involved in Europe the previous weekend. They may join up on the Monday, but anyone who has been playing Heineken Cup rugby the previous Saturday or Sunday will be in pieces until around the Wednesday. They'll need two or three days before bodies are back in any kind of condition to do serious work."

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs believes that Sale prop Andy Sheridan is on the verge of signing for Top 14 side Toulon.

"England prop Andrew Sheridan appears to be on the verge of bringing the curtain down on his glittering international career after entering into negotiations with Top 14 club Toulon about a move to France next season, Telegraph Sport can reveal..

The big-spending French club are also understood to be close to signing England full-back Delon Armitage, who was also overlooked for Stuart Lancaster’s Elite Player Squad for the Six Nations announced on Wednesday.

Armitage’s London Irish team-mate, the former England lock Nick Kennedy, is also thought to have signed a three-year deal with Toulon, which could potentially bring the number of English players at the club to eight next season in a fresh exodus of players across the Channel.
Former England players Jonny Wilkinson, Simon Shaw, Steffon Armitage and Dean Schofield are already at Toulon as well as former Saracens lock Kris Chesney."

Can England boss Stuart Lancaster back up the positive spin with results? © Getty Images

The Guardian's Rob Kitson offers an insight into an off-the-record briefing given to the media by England boss Stuart Lancaster.

"It is impossible to overstate the gale of fresh Pennines air which has begun to blow through English rugby. The unfamiliar names on the squad list reflect the shifting climate but the change in attitude is the most striking. When in 10 days' time the players arrive at the Sycamores, home of West Park Leeds RUFC, for their pre-Six Nations training camp, they will be walking into a cultural revolution.

"Stuart Lancaster, England's interim head coach, was not about to give all his tactical secrets away on day one but already it is clear how he has achieved world-class level-five coaching status. By way of welcoming the media to Yorkshire for the start of a potentially gripping adventure, he gave an off-the-record presentation on his attacking philosophy which ranked among the most gloriously refreshing delivered by any coach in my biro-chewing experience. Suffice to say, he made some of his predecessors sound like blinkered speak-your-weight machines."

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary is refusing to get carried away with Stuart Lancaster's youthful-looking England squad.

"Stuart Lancaster has proven himself to be a slick PR operator: presentable bloke, media-friendly, strong message. The returns have been immediate. The soiled RFU brand has had an instant makeover.

"From the trough of post World Cup despond, suddenly there is light and optimism. It’s a pity that England have got to play some matches. It could ruin what has been a great story.

"Well, so much for the curmudgeon’s perspective. It may not pan out that way. But as Lancaster prepares to name his 32-man Elite Player Squad tomorrow, it’s only right to correct false impressions that may have built up. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that gung-ho England is a mirage. They are defending Six Nations champions, after all."

Stuart Lancaster has wielded the axe in his EPS © Getty Images

Chris Foy, of the Daily Mail, reports that 13 members of the squad which journeyed to the 2011 World Cup are likely to be axed by Stuart Lancaster in Wednesday's EPS announcement.

"Stuart Lancaster will confirm his overhaul of the England set-up on Wednesday when he reveals a 32-man squad awash with emerging young talent and minus 13 of the players who were at the World Cup.

Of the 32 names expected to be included in the senior group to be revealed at lunchtime, 15 were not in New Zealand for a campaign which ended in quarter-final defeat after a catalogue of off-field dramas.

As revealed in Sportsmail, veterans Mike Tindall, Nick Easter and Mark Cueto are not among the chosen men for a Six Nations which will act as the first step towards the home World Cup in 2015."

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs believes that Bill Beaumont is likely to take on the chairman role at the RFU.

"Bill Beaumont looks set to become the next chairman of the Rugby Football Union after the former England captain narrowly failed narrowly in his bid to become chair of the International Rugby Board last month, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

Beaumont is understood to be close to declaring his intention to stand and if he does so it is almost certain he will not be opposed for the position given his popularity within the governing body and the wider grassroots game.

There was support in the RFU council before Christmas for one of the two new independent non-executive directors, Andrew Higginson or Miles Templeman, to put themselves forward for election while Ian Metcalfe, the current chair of the professional game board, has also demonstrated strong leadership after the political fallout following England's World Cup quarter-final exit."

Writing in the Guardian, Rob Kitson previews Stuart Lancaster's EPS squad.

"It is almost 15 years since English rugby last experienced such a complete change of direction. The arrival of Clive Woodward at Twickenham in 1997 was the prelude to a wholesale selectorial reshuffle. Something similar is imminent. When Stuart Lancaster unveils his senior and Saxons squads at West Park Leeds RFC in Yorkshire, last year's World Cup will suddenly feel like ancient history.

Lancaster, of course, is merely occupying a caretaker role but half of the squad that Martin Johnson took to New Zealand are in danger of becoming permanently surplus to requirements. Trading places with Lewis Moody, Mike Tindall, Mark Cueto et al will be names such as Owen Farrell, Ben Morgan, Brad Barritt and Joe Marler, all uncapped and desperate to be part of a brighter future. It will not so much feel like a small transfusion of fresh blood as a whole armful."

Vern Cotter is reportedly on the shortlist to become the next England coach © Getty Images

Gavin Mairs reports in the Daily Telegraph that Clermont Auvergne coach Vern Cotter is in contention to become the new England head coach.

Vern Cotter, the coach of French Top 14 side Clermont Auvergne, is understood to be in contention for the England head coach position if Stuart Lancaster is not retained beyond the Six Nations championship.

The headhunting firm hired by the Rugby Football Union to search for a permanent successor to Martin Johnson, who resigned as England manager in November, is thought to have given a presentation about their progress to the professional game board yesterday.

Cotter, who was narrowly pipped by Steve Hansen to succeed Graham Henry as the next All Blacks coach, is understood to be one of the leading names under consideration, along with former South Africa and Italy coach Nick Mallett.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Steve James argues that Stuart Lancaster temper some of the more flambouyant characters in the England squad, such as Chris Ashton.

England must not just win; they must win with style and grace. As individual characters they have to become less disliked.

So, say, in the case of Chris Ashton, that is going to be some task. Again the truth can’t be as bad as the perception, but he has appeared to reveal the most remarkable ability to wind up almost anyone in contact with him, from opponents to, most recently, his own club, Northampton.

To read his good-idea-at-the-time book, Splashdown, is to pore over a defence of his actions to the people he has irritated.

From the Wales players when he appeared to celebrate Stephen Jones’s concussion, to Italy’s Gonzalo Canale over his silly try-scoring dive (“leave him alone, he’s an idiot,” his team-mate Toby Flood said, tellingly, of him), to Ronan O’Gara over a perceived lack of respect, to Manu Tuilagi, who thumped him so spectacularly last season.

Sadly the book was published too early for the latest hair-pulling incident at Leicester. Maybe Lancaster should ban that mocking Ashton dive, something Martin Johnson tried and failed. Now that would be a real statement of intent.

Sir Clive Woodward is poised to lead the Great Britain team to the Winter Youth Olympic Games © Getty Images

The Independent on Sunday's Alan Hubbard talks to Sir Clive Woodward who reveals he would have taken a different approach to former England coach Martin Johnson.

"I ask him if he would have done things differently. "Yes, I like to think I would," he says. "But it's easy to view things from the stands.

"I never had to experience the sort of things that went on there in my years in charge. We were very, very big on discipline, how we operated both on and off the field. It's not just the obvious areas of drinking and partying, it's all sorts of things.

"I would have sat down with them as individuals and then as a team, looked them straight in the eye and said, 'How do you want to be remembered?' I know how I want to be remembered, and that's for being on the back pages rather than the front pages.

"I can think of nothing worse than being remembered for doing something inappropriate that would affect the performance of a team-mate or another athlete. It will be with you for the rest of your life."

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Brian Moore previews the announcement of England's Six Nations squad on Wednesday.

"The sight of two brooding, shaven-headed characters at various public venues last weekend might have provoked calls to the Home Office reporting escaped inmates.

"England coach Stuart Lancaster and his assistant Graham Rowntree look more likely to reside in a halfway house than at Rugby House in Twickenham, but, as they say, appearances can be deceptive.

"Their behaviour prior to announcing their 32-man Six Nations squad has shown common sense and refreshingly little spin.

"Having announced that the tone will be one of hard work and humility, the pair now face the much more difficult job of selection and their success will define their contribution to the national cause.

"Can they reverse the recidivism of previous regimes, who slid into reactive choice by crisis and could not establish a planned route of progression for players?"

Danny Care has been booted out of the England squad after his recent run in with the law © Getty Images

The Observer's Eddie Butler looks at the drinking culture within rugby.

"In the light of what a few England players got up to in the bars and harbours of New Zealand at the World Cup, not a lot of sympathy came Danny Care's way when he had a fixed-penalty fine slapped on him for drunk and disorderly behaviour before Christmas. And even less when he failed a drink-driving test on New Year's Day.

The Harlequins scrum-half may have missed the World Cup through injury and thereby avoided seeing with his own eyes the misadventures of England, but he must have been in a state of total oblivion not to recognise that what happened out there has had an effect over here. After the binge came the hangover of all those reviews and leaked questionnaires and the resignations and the sackings. And now has come the taking of the pledge, with the new coach, Stuart Lancaster, promising a fresh approach on the field and a reappraisal of the culture of England rugby."

The Daily Mail's Ian Stafford writes that England boss Stuart Lancaster will refrain from banning alcohol within the side.

"Stuart Lancaster will not impose a 'booze' ban on his squad, despite the problems that have beset England players both during the World Cup and since.

England's interim head coach will announce a predominantly youthful group of 32 players for the Elite Player Squad and a further 32 for the Saxons squad on Wednesday."

The Observer's Paul Rees talks to Stuart Lancaster about where he feels England are ahead of their Six Nations opener with Scotland.

"It has been forgotten, in the self-flagellation and mea culpas that followed England's wretched World Cup, that they go into the Six Nations next month as champions. They lost three matches in 13 in 2011, the same number of defeats that Wales and France suffered in New Zealand in the autumn.

Wales's World Cup was considered an unqualified success after they reached the semi-finals, but they finished the tournament two places lower in the world rankings than when it started. England went to New Zealand in fifth position and returned home in the same place, having clambered into the top four after the group stage. It is, as Stuart Lancaster, their interim head coach, mused last week, a matter of perception. Leaked reviews into what happened, however, painted a bleak picture of a group of players who had little respect for the management."

The Sunday Telegraph's Paul Ackford picks over the forthcoming EPS squad.

"England's interim coach Stuart Lancaster has a difficult job picking the England squad ahead of the Six Nations.

Injuries

Andrew Sheridan and Richard Wigglesworth are both long-term crocked. Louis Deacon, Manu Tuilagi, Courtney Lawes and Toby Flood are all also carrying injuries of varying seriousness.
Regulations require most to be named in squads for later matches, but availability for selection against Scotland on.

Feb 4 could be severely hit. Anyone playing well at loose head prop, openside or lock has a big chance."

The Mail on Sunday's Ian Stafford talks to Saracens fly-half Owen Farrell about his ambition to emulate his father and get an England cap.

"Owen Farrell knows all too well the sporting characteristic he has inherited most from his famous father, former England star and now backs coach Andy Farrell.

'I've got Dad's big mouth,' admitted Farrell junior. 'You could always hear him on the pitch.

'There would be 20,000 people in the stands at Wigan, but you could still hear him giving orders and leading people. I'd like to think I'm the same'."

Brian Smith calling the shots when he was in charge of England's attack © Getty Images

Former England coach Brian Smith, talking to Chris Hewett of the Independent, gives his side of the story after the World Cup fiasco.

"The moment Martin Johnson announced his resignation as England manager in mid-November, the attack coach Brian Smith decided he had no option but to do likewise. "It was Martin who had appointed me, so I felt my position was untenable," he says quietly, reflecting on that supremely difficult moment.

His departure was not confirmed until after the leaking of three post-World Cup reviews – an act that brought the Rugby Football Union to its knees and left Smith, heavily criticised in the published extracts, incandescent with anger at what he saw as a one-sided assault on his professional credentials.

He thought about leaving the country; for a moment, he even wondered whether a career in top-level sport was worth the hassle. Happily, he has spent the last few weeks thinking again."

Former England boss Brian Ashton, in his column for the Independent, provides his take on the forthcoming EPS.

"It is with keen anticipation – keener than usual following Martin Johnson's resignation as England manager and a clear-out of the coaching staff – that the rugby public await next week's announcement of the new Elite Player Squad ahead of the Six Nations Championship.

Stuart Lancaster and his colleagues have been weighing up their options for the best part of a month now and in many ways they find themselves in a win-win situation. In this pressurised day and age, the chance to tread a totally fresh pathway with a major national side is a rare opportunity indeed."

Leicester prop Dan Cole could be an outside shot for the England captaincy, according to Mick Cleary of the Daily Telegraph.

"If strong leadership is the key to future success for England, then head coach Stuart Lancaster will have taken note of the decisive, unruffled manner of Leicester tighthead Dan Cole as he saw off the challenge of team-mate George Chuter, to win a knockabout sports quiz organised by insurers QBE in Stafford on Thursday evening.

From a fun night to serious business, Cole will be at the Welford Road coalface today chiselling away to find a point of weakness in the Wasps front row as Leicester look to continue their push into the Aviva Premiership play-off positions on the back of a recent run of good form.

Cole, 24, is a wry, reticent type, not strident captaincy material but just the sort of honest-to-goodness bloke Lancaster needs to come forward and assume responsibility if England are to mould the next generation of influential leaders on the field."

On the eve of the 2000th Aviva Premiership match, Paul Rees, of the Guardian, looks back at the colourful history of England's top flight.

"When the Premiership was launched in August 1997, the weekend before the death of Princess Diana, senior figures in the Rugby Football Union scoffed at the notion that professional club rugby would ever be self-sustaining. Today, 1,995 matches and almost as many political battles with the governing body later, the international and club games live, almost, in a state of symbiosis. No one dared predict that 15 years ago, when the talk was about breakaways and expulsion.

The landscape has changed considerably since 1997: grounds have been redeveloped, facilities for spectators have improved considerably, the academy system is flourishing, coaching is the responsibility of a team rather than an individual and players' welfare is a priority rather than an afterthought.

But the biggest shift is in the status of club rugby. In the late 90s, the Commons select committee on media, culture and sport described it as a stepping stone to the international game, "a means to an end and not an end in itself". It is now a business with an annual turnover of some £120m – not far short of what the RFU brings in."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy talks to Geordan Murphy who waxes lyrical about his passion for the Leicester Tigers

"Leicester versus Wasps. For so many years this was the prime fixture, the main event in the calendar and a seismic collision between domestic giants. Not any more.

On Saturday, Welford Road will stage the latest instalment of a once-fierce rivalry, but the visitors from London are a pale imitation of their predecessors who reached the pinnacle of the domestic and European game.

Wasps are in a state of turbulent transition and lie 11th in the Aviva Premiership table.

Like most clubs in most sports, Wasps are caught up in a cyclical process, but Leicester are seemingly immune to such inconvenient ebbs and flows of fortune. They are the Manchester United of the oval-ball code - perennial contenders, with strong support."

Steve Diamond's appointment is hoped to herald in a new era for Sale © Getty Images

Shaun Edwards, in his column for the Guardian, looks at the revolution occurring in the north of England in a week which saw Stuart Lancaster take England to Leeds and Steve Diamond taking on the CEO role at Sale Sharks.

"It may be overstating the case to suggest that a great northern storm is blowing through the portals of English rugby, but there are certainly a few gusts of which to take note.

Eye-catching, of course, is Stuart Lancaster's decision to move England's base camp for the Six Nations to Leeds, a patch he knows best, rather than follow what had become the accepted way of doing things and booking his elite squad in for a few days in the gentler airs of a Portuguese winter.

Along with the disciplining of Danny Care, while telling some of England's more venerable internationals that they will not be required, the interim coach has set a different tone from the one which seems to have applied at the World Cup, but look over the other side of the Pennines and you'll see something equally important going on."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy claims Charlie Hodgson is on the verge of a remarkable re-call to the England side.

"Charlie Hodgson last started a Test for England three-and-a-half years ago, but in a week when other 30-something players have refused to abandon their international careers, his may be about to take a major twist.

Sportsmail understands that the Saracens fly-half has strongly considered retiring from Test rugby in order to allow the next generation of No 10s to emerge. However, if the 31-year-old had resolved to quit, he is surely having a re-think now. All of a sudden, more caps appear to be within his grasp."

The Daily Telegraph's Brendan Gallagher talks to Northampton Saints' Phil Dowson about his ever-present England ambitions.

"By his own admission Phil Dowson has been playing for England Saxons "since the crusades began" but the Northampton flanker, a veteran of six largely successful campaigns with England's second string, still hasn't given up hope of making that final elusive step up to the full England squad.

And Dowson, still only 30, will never have a better opportunity to press his case than at Franklin's Garden's on Friday when Saints take on Harlequins in one of the showpiece matches of the Premiership season.

While the performances of Tom Wood and Chris Robshaw, both touted as England starters in the Six Nations next month, will be minutely scrutinised along with that of Nick Easter who has been in fine form despite some critics penning his international obituary, Dowson is well capable of stealing the show and launching one final assault on winning that elusive first cap."

The Guardian's Rob Kitson looks at the battle for the England captaincy.

"Decision time looms for England's interim head coach, Stuart Lancaster, and a floodlit Friday night match in the east Midlands will effectively provide a final Six Nations trial. Lancaster has settled on the bulk of his 32-man senior squad but he still has to identify a captain and his best starting XV. Northampton's game against the league leaders, Harlequins, should help answer both conundrums.

Between them the two clubs have around 16 players hoping for inclusion in the senior or Saxons squads that will be unveiled in Leeds next Wednesday. Three of the prominent candidates to replace Lewis Moody as England captain – Tom Wood, Chris Robshaw and Dylan Hartley – will play, as will the in-form full-backs Ben Foden and Mike Brown and numerous other contenders."

England will train in Leeds following Stuart Lancaster's decision © Getty Images

The Guardian's Rob Kitson provides his take on Stuart Lancaster's decision to take England to Leeds.

"On the surface England's new era is not easy to distinguish from the old one. Stuart Lancaster has yet to preside over a senior Test fixture but already he can relate to what his predecessor Martin Johnson went through. The combination of Danny Care's second drink-related arrest in three weeks and worryingly timed injuries to potential key men such as Manu Tuilagi and Courtney Lawes is hardly a recipe for pre‑Six Nations managerial nirvana.

Care's latest error of judgment, even so, may just have done Lancaster an unintended favour. By excluding the Harlequins scrum-half from national service until May at the earliest, the caretaker has delivered the starkest of messages to the rest of the squad. Not only is the scenery shifting, with this month's training camp to be held at West Park RFC just outside Leeds rather than the Algarve, but mindless irresponsibility by cast members is to be outlawed, too. The players are not heading to Yorkshire for the quality of the local real ale."

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary looks at the revolution England boss Stuart Lancaster is currently undertaking.

"In admitting on Wednesday that there was a perception that elite rugby players were self-obsessed party animals, England head coach Stuart Lancaster pledged to flush away all pretensions of grandeur by siting his pre-Six Nations camp in the back-to-basics surroundings of the club at which he coaches under-11s mini-rugby on a Sunday morning in Leeds.

The West Park club, some 10 miles north of Leeds, play their rugby in Yorkshire Division Two. The setting is a far cry from England’s usual training HQ set in the country-house surroundings of Pennyhill Park in 123 acres of rolling parkland in Surrey, and has even less in common with the warm-weather site on the Algarve which England used to prepare for last year’s Six Nations.

West Park run four sides and although their 42-acre site has been impressively redeveloped in recent years, they abide by classic Yorkshire virtues of graft and humility. “Owt for nowt”, as Lancaster put it recently, and will be just the tonic needed to right the badly-listing World Cup ship."

Lancaster (centre) has opted to discard Danny Care from his Six Nations plans © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary reflects on England's decision to kick Quins scrum-half Danny Care out of their Six Nations plans.

"Stuart Lancaster has already made a bold statement of his managerial style, and shown himself to be more of a disciplinarian than his predecessor, a stance that can only stand him in good stead when the Rugby Football Union comes to deciding on a permanent head coach.

"Lancaster might have been tempted to take the easy way out with Care. Even though he had had cause to have stern words with the Harlequins scrum-half only a few weeks ago, this latest incident was once again on club duty.

"However Lancaster, who has made a good impression with his upfront ways and positive talk since being promoted to the job on an interim basis from the England Saxons, made great play on appointment in early December of the virtues of character and correct behaviour following England’s scandal-blighted World Cup campaign."

Could watching UFC result in better performances from your team? © Getty Images

Watching erotic or aggressive videos before training leads to measurable improvements in the physical performance of rugby players, according to scientists. The Times' Hannah Devlin reports (via paywall).

"The findings might not help England’s rugby players to redress their reputation after a poor World Cup campaign, but coaches believe that the results could help players to maximise the effectiveness of training sessions.

"The study, involving 12 professionals from a top English rugby union team, found that when players were shown a four-minute clip of either exotic dancing or an ultimate fighting championship (UFC) competitor, they experienced a peak in testosterone levels and their power output rose in strength-conditioning exercises.

"The study, which is due to be published in the journal Hormones and Behaviour, was carried out by UK Sport, which provides scientific guidance to the British Olympic squad.

"Some coaches are already using “motivational” videos of this type to help to boost performance in training, according to scientists."

Newcastle fly-half Jimmy Gopperth is confident that Premiership's bottom club can stay in the Premiership, but these are bleak days in the north-east. The Guardian's Ian Malin reports.

"Newcastle's fly-half Jimmy Gopperth, for one, is looking at the match against Northampton with glass half-full in hand. "I have no doubt we'll still be in the Premiership at the end of the season," says the New Zealander who has consistently been Newcastle's best player since his move two years ago.

"Gopperth can point to victories at Kingston Park over London Wasps and Gloucester that back his theory. Traditionally visiting sides have not been at their best after making the long journey north but it is away from home that Newcastle are suffering. With their Boxing Day defeat at Sale they have gone six matches without picking up a bonus point on the road.

"Gopperth, though, is not short of confidence as befits a man who has filled the big boots of Jonny Wilkinson at Kingston Park. "It is hard to pinpoint why we are so much better at home but there is a passionate crowd here and we feel a lot more comfortable playing in front of them."

The Guardian's Barney Ronay provides a fictional take on what could have happened following the England team's night out in Queenstown.

"1 min: Hello and welcome to exclusively typed, live-blog coverage of the England rugby squad's daily World Cup meeting in the luxurious Larsen-Snedden Business Centre at the majestic Hotel Conchord, New Zealand's fourth most splendid hotel/conference complex.

2 min: It has been an unusually turbulent 24 hours for England's players, even by the standards of what is an unusually turbulent, slow-burn, listless, embattled,fatally undermined, terminally self-torpedoing, shakily hurled together, disastrously inharmonious, macrocosmically doomed World Cup campaign. Or at least that's what it looks like so far, a mere six days in. No doubt everything will be fine from here and England will go on to win the World Cup with a scintillating exhibition of sustained running rugby so thrilling they're gripped by the urge to hurl themselves into Auckland harbour in celebration on the way home. Something along those lines anyway."

The Daily Telegraph's' Paul Hayward talks to England coach Graham Rowntree about his experiences after the infamous World Cup campaign.

"So, Graham, how does it feel to be the last man standing? There is no answer, but then a smile. “Thanks. I’m so proud,” he finally says. But before pride there was a kind of grief.

Graham Rowntree is describing the bleak hours when England’s Rugby World Cup team touched down from New Zealand: “When we landed, for the first time in my life I felt ashamed. Ashamed of being a part of it. We got back on the Monday and I didn’t go to pick the children up from school for a few days, or drop them off, because I didn’t want to see anyone.

“I didn’t want to see friends who know what job I do, or mates in rugby. I just wanted to stay away from people.” The only England coach to escape condemnation by England’s players in those infamous leaked World Cup reports, Rowntree is now happily embedded in a three-man caretaker regime for the Six Nations Championship, alongside Stuart Lancaster and Andy Farrell."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy reports from Saracens' Aviva Premiership victory over Harlequins at Twickenham.

"Conor O'Shea was forced to acclaim Owen Farrell’s remarkable maturity and Test potential after Harlequins’ record- breaking festive extravaganza at Twickenham was spoiled by the Saracens rookie.

"A crowd of 82,000 — the largest ever recorded for a club game in this country — massed at HQ with the vast majority hoping to see Quins extend their lead at the top of the Aviva Premiership table. Yet, after 25 minutes, Saracens were 19-3 ahead, Farrell had 14 points to his name and O’Shea’s men were chasing the game. They would never recover.

"This was a second defeat in three games for the team who had begun the season with a run of 14 straight victories. Having lost at home to Toulouse 16 days earlier, they had responded with an epic win in the return fixture but on this occasion they had no answer to Saracens’ initial power and control up front, allied to Farrell’s precision in front of goal.

"At the end of last season, the 20-year-old had kicked his club to a maiden Premiership title in the final against Leicester. This time he was similarly assured and it was a good time to make such a positive statement, with England head coach Stuart Lancaster among the hordes in attendance."

The Times' Mark Souster chats to injured Harlequins lock Ollie Kohn about the business he expects will form the backbone to his business life once he has retired from rugby. (Via paywall)

"As with any proper red-blooded lock, Kohn, 30, has always had a passion for meat, but never expected to be able to translate that into something that would make him a living.

"The situation changed three years ago when Eloise, his wife, gave him a sausage-making machine for his birthday. It was his Damascene moment. Suddenly he had found his vocation.

"His first attempts were less than successful, with more meat spewing out on to kitchen walls than in the sausages themselves. “It drove her mad and she wondered what she had done,” Kohn said. “But I didn’t want it just to be a hobby. It has become much bigger than I thought it would be.”

"After his first dodgy attempts with a less than tasty chipolata, he moved on to something more exotic: pork and leek, pork and apple, venison and cranberry, and now a sausage with flecks of black pudding.

"It is all served and sold from the travelling retro Airstream van called “Miss Piggy” in which can also be roasted a whole hog. He sells up to 20,000 sausages a year all made in a special unit — rented to cope with demand — in Bristol, where he was born and where he played under Bob Dwyer, then director of rugby at the Memorial Ground."

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary assesses the potential of Harlequins prop and England prospect Joe Marler.

Joe Marler is not one of life’s conventional characters, as 80,000 fans at Twickenham for Harlequins’ top-of-the-table Aviva Premiership clash with Saracens on Tuesday will testify.

The flame-red Mohican sported last season may have become more muted - although you never quite know what a short Christmas break may have prompted the 21 year-old to come up with - but there is no mistaking Marler’s unique presence on a rugby field, the potential apprentice butcher with hands so deft that they can reverse offload on a cut-back run as he did against Wasps a couple of weeks ago to create a try for centre Matt Hopper.

In his own words, Marler is “a little bit odd”. He has his “expression of individuality” haircut, now almost grown out, and his occasional skirmishes with the disciplinary officers following what he calls “the descent of the red mist”.

Brendan Gallagher, of the Daily Telegraph, looks at Marco Wentzel's role with Wasps and his part in their set-piece.

"It says much for Marco Wentzel’s reputation as possibly the top line-out operator in the Premiership that somebody as experienced and knowledgeable as Dai Young has no qualms about handing over all coaching responsibilities in that area to one of his players.

Not only will the athletic South African lock be Wasps' go-to line-out jumper at a sell-out Kingsholm on Monday against Gloucester, but Wentzel is the man who has planned and coached every variation – attack and defence – in Wasps' line-out play book. If it all goes wrong he will have nobody to blame but himself.

But so far so good. Like many it seems in a spectacularly congested Premiership table behind high-flying Harlequins, Wasps have endured mixed results but their line-out play, a source of concern over the decades, has improved dramatically.

“Marco is recognised as one of the very top line-out operators in the European game and he’s certainly the best I have ever encountered on and off the field,” says Young."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy talks to Sale boss Steve Diamond about his side's change in fortunes.

"It was arguably the transfer coup of the year and the most compelling sign yet that a revival is in full swing.

Last month, when Scotland lock and Lion-in-waiting Richie Gray agreed to join Sale, it confirmed the overhaul of the club’s reputation.

Several leading clubs in Europe had coveted the 22-year-old’s signature, but he opted for Sale despite a last-ditch attempt by Saracens to hijack the deal. He agreed to come because of the remarkable work done by Steve Diamond, director of rugby at Edgeley Park."

The Guardian's Paul Rees previews the potentially key clash between Sale Sharks and Newcastle Falcons on Boxing Day.

"Four Aviva Premiership sides are looking to put the punch back into their campaigns after falling away in the autumn. Sale and Newcastle, who meet each other at Edgeley Park, have both won only one of their past four league matches, the same record as Gloucester and Wasps, who face each other at Kingsholm.

Newcastle will go into the new year at the bottom of the table if they fail to leave Stockport with at least a point. They are six points behind Worcester and entertain Northampton on the last day of this month. The Falcons have lost all their five away matches in the Premiership season and have not mustered a bonus point."

Jonny Wilkinson remains as dedicated to rugby as ever © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Oliver Brown talks to Jonny Wilkinson about the fly-half's future post international retirement.

After a decade’s worth of monastic dedication, complicated by a heartbreaking injury sequence and his own self-reproach after every performance he perceived as imperfect, the hero of 2003 surely merited as much.

But in the wake of his international retirement this month Wilkinson has become, if anything, even more obsessed — to the point where every kick he makes in the red-and-black of Toulon assumes the significance of ‘life and death’.

In his column for the Independent, former England coach Brian Ashton reveals the lessons he learned on a trip to watch Manchester City against Arsenal in the Premier League.

So what did I learn at the Etihad Stadium? In no particular order;

1) The control and accuracy of the players under intense and ever-changing pressure was immensely impressive – skills underpinned by intelligent movement from virtually everyone on the field when they were not in possession. The general willingness to seek out space and offer options was outstanding;

2) The pace at which all this took place is only truly discernible when watching live. Television does not come close to highlighting this quality;

3) The vision and communication skills common to the vast majority of the players ensured there was little in the way of hit-and-hope football: the long ball was sparingly used, and only when appropriate;

4) The way both sides dealt with transition play – the turnover, in rugby parlance – was highly instructive. Their capacity to be both reactive and proactive with their own and the opposition's changes of shape amounted to a coaching lesson.

Could Charlie Hodgson line up for England during the Six Nations? © Getty Images

Mick Cleary, of the Daily Telegraph, writes that the Sarries half-back partnership of Charlie Hodgson and Owen Farrell is likely to be reunited during the Six Nations.

"The prospect of fly-half Charlie Hodgson taking his club partnership with Saracens’ centre Owen Farrell into England’s 2012 Six Nations championship campaign is a very real one.

Telegraph Sport understands that Farrell will be in the 32-man elite player squad named on Jan 11 while Hodgson is sure to be understudy to Toby Flood now that Jonny Wilkinson has retired from Test rugby.

Hodgson, 31, did not have such an arrangement in mind when he announced his shock decision in January to move south from Sale, the club he had served with seemingly unbreakable loyalty for over a decade."

The Daily Mail's Rob Wildman talks to Manu Tuilagi as he reflects on the year gone.

"Manu Tuilagi has vowed to avoid further trouble after an 'awesome and hectic' first year in professional rugby.

Tuilagi has gone from Leicester's academy team to be first-choice centre for England and gained notoriety along the way. Diving from a ferry in Auckland harbour, following England's defeat by France in the World Cup quarter-final, earned him a £3,000 fine and a warning from then manager Martin Johnson.

'It was a stupid thing to do and I have let everyone down,' the 20-year-old admitted."

Saracens and Ospreys pack down during their Heineken Cup clash at the Liberty Stadium © Getty Images

With a set-piece shambles threatening to ruin rugby as a spectacle - the Daily Mail's rugby writers asks five experts to analyse what's wrong with the scrum.

"Ed Morrison - RFU referees' manager

"The engagement is being refereed in a reasonably consistent manner, but the game does have a problem with scrums and that was clear for all to see on Friday. It's time to wake up to that.

"Referees don't collapse scrums, players collapse scrums. Teams don't want to go backwards so they will just collapse or stand up. That brings the referee into the equation and they don't always get it right.

"A lot of cheating goes on and it is difficult for the referee who might not have played in that area. Having more ex-front row players as referees is one idea but there is a lot of running around involved and that might be difficult for them.

"You have to ask yourself if the 'crouch, touch, pause, engage' sequence is working, but well-disciplined, well-coached packs can cope with it."

Gavin Mairs and Mick Cleary, of the Daily Telegraph, believe that Mike Brown will get his chance to shine for England at the expense of Delon Armitage.

"Mike Brown’s outstanding form for Harlequins this season looks certain to be rewarded with a place in the England elite player squad next month at the expense of London Irish full-back Delon Armitage.

Brown, who scored twice in Harlequins’s 31-24 victory at Toulouse in the Heineken Cup on Sunday, is expected to be named on Jan 11 as one of the two full-backs in Stuart Lancaster’s squad, along with Northampton’s Ben Foden.

Brown won the last of his three caps for England on the ill-fated tour of New Zealand in 2008 when he got embroiled in the scandal that followed the first Test in Auckland, eventually being fined £1,000 for misconduct in staying out all night.

While it has taken more than three years for Brown to rebuild his reputation, Armitage’s has been tainted by four suspensions this year."

The familiar image of Jonny Wilkinson going for the posts © Getty Images

Paul Ackford, writing for the Sunday Telegraph, pays tribute to Jonny Wilkinson.

"It’s been a bad few weeks for the icons of 2003. First Martin Johnson went, forced out by a small group of self-serving players who were unable to live by the values Johnson himself modelled.

Then Sir Clive Woodward’s return to the elite end of English rugby appeared to go south when the performance of the senior England team became a matter for the new chief executive, Ian Ritchie.

And now Jonny Wilkinson has taken leave of the Test arena, the only environment which can truly validate his obsessive search for perfection. Ah well, at least 2003 should never again haunt the current regime as it seeks to establish itself.

Wilkinson’s departure is the saddest by some distance. You can imagine Johnson and Woodward surviving beyond rugby. Indeed Woodward self-evidently has. But Wilkinson? That’s not such a certainty."

Hugh Godwin, of the Sunday Independent, talks to the next potential England captain - Tom Wood.

"Appropriately for the numbers he is accustomed to wearing on his back, Tom Wood is a man at sixes and sevens when judging this season as it nears the halfway point. In one breath he is answering the question of what he would say if he was offered the captaincy of England – "Yes please" is the simple reply – and in the next he is explaining why the World Cup made him "bitter and angry" and his club Northampton are at a low ebb playing a Heineken Cup pool match today with three defeats out of three in the tournament behind them.

A less engaging conversationalist than Wood might resort to the term "roller coaster". But an hour chatting to the 25-year-old from Coventry is time well spent. There is a detailed analysis of the flanker position he plays with Northampton – a mix of blind and openside which, Wood says with a glint in his steady gaze, is misunderstood by TV commentators – and how he was misused by Martin Johnson's England."

David Flatman, in his column for the Independent, remembers the time he played alongside Jonny Wilkinson.

"As rugby union grows steadily into the bespoke suit that is professionalism, so it becomes gradually more established in the eyes of the public and, perhaps more significantly, those of potential sponsors. Like any start-up business, its solidity as an investment improves with every year that it survives.

And with this, inevitably, comes a boatload more perks. When I was a kid playing for Saracens we were all given the keys to a new car at the start of the season as if it were the norm. "You're a pro now, lad," said our team manager, "better get used to all this."

The Guardian's Rob Kitson talks to Leicester's Ben Youngs about matters England and Tigers.

"It has been a long 10 weeks since England were knocked out of the 2011 Rugby World Cup by France. Small wonder Ben Youngs wants to move on. The reviews, the leaks, the recriminations, the managerial changes – no self-respecting 22-year-old can afford to spend the rest of his life regretting what might have been. "It'll be very interesting to see what happens next," he says softly. "I think it's a very exciting time for England."

He may be proved right. If Leicester can beat the Michelin men of Clermont Auvergne in their pivotal Heineken Cup pool game at Welford Road on Saturday afternoon, a little cautious confidence will seep back into the English rugby psyche. From Youngs' perspective, outplaying his influential opposite number, Morgan Parra, would also banish some Auckland ghosts. It will be tough, given the Tigers' 30-12 away defeat last Sunday, but the benefits of victory could ripple beyond the chilly east Midlands."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy speaks to Gloucester's Luke Narraway about his international aspirations.

"Whatever the stresses and strains of captaining Gloucester - and there have been plenty this season - Luke Narraway will be out and about on Christmas Eve, delivering turkeys on behalf of the family butcher's shop in nearby Worcester.

No matter how intense the desire to resurrect his club's faltering season and force his way back into the England ranks for the Six Nations, there will be other business to attend to. It acts as a useful outlet from the chosen profession and the 28-year-old has as much of a passion for it as he does for his rugby."

AELTC boss Ian Ritchie has been revealed as the RFU's new chief executive © Getty Images

The Daily Mail's Mike Dickson profiles the Rugby Footbal Union's new chief executive Ian Ritchie.

"Ian Ritchie is known in tennis for his bonhomie and, while he does not have a major rugby background, he will enjoy the sociable culture of the sport he is moving into.

"Whether visiting a Grand Slam overseas or amid the frenetic pressure of a Wimbledon fortnight, he retains his self-deprecating good humour and is always prepared to engage in a chat with his many friends in the game.

"Those who encounter him in rugby would, though, be unwise to mistake that for any lack of intelligence, drive or business acumen.

"His people skills are excellent but underneath he will take a hardheaded approach to the manifest problems which await him, and it will help that he arrives with no baggage."

New RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie must put all his energy into reviving rugby in England according to Brian Moore in the Daily Telegraph.

"While Ritchie has this columnist’s best wishes, there are a few points to make about his previous experience.

"The full time CEO of the RFU should not be allowed to have outside business interests that are anything other than nominal and should not continue to be an active administrator in other sports.

"First of all, his entire energy and time should be directed to the RFU and its business. Further, the potential for any conflict of interest to arise has to be removed completely.

"Being involved in the operation of two other governing bodies of major sports undoubtedly gives Ritchie a wider sporting perspective. However, the FA has, hitherto, hardly been the best example of an organisation that works seamlessly."

Jonny Wilkinson embraces team-mate Will Greenwood following their Rugby World Cup triumph © Getty Images

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Will Greenwood pays a personal tribute to Jonny Wilkinson following his international retirement.

"The lad was born with talent, and there can be no doubt about the gifts he was given. But that is only part of the story. His brilliance was achieved through his dedication to his craft.

"He worked harder than anyone to maximise his talent, even to the point that his own physical and mental wellbeing came into question.

"When the rest of England’s players were already deep in their baths, Dave Alred, the kicking coach, would drive his car onto the pitch so that Jonny could keep practising in the beams of his headlights. In terms of running he would do the drills and switch off his brain to pain.

"When others were limping off after heavy contact sessions he was just getting warmed up. No matter how long a session was he would do each drill as if it was the only one, giving his all each and every time. I still don’t know how do you do that."

Talking to the Daily Mail's Chris Foy, Jonny Wilkinson's mentor Steve Black insists the fly-half has the makings of a great coach.

"The man who has spent the last 15 years as Jonny Wilkinson's Geordie guru, trainer, confidant and friend believes that the legendary England fly- half will emerge as a formidable coach in years to come.

"...In my opinion he has all the attributes to become a superb coach,' said Black. 'He has always been a student of the game, he has so many great ideas and I doubt many people know more about the psychological and physical preparation a team need.

'He is hugely interested in how sport operates and, with the experience he has, I think he would be tremendously successful."

The Rugby Football Union’s new chief executive will feel less like the latest headmaster of St Trinian’s when he sees the projected team in place for the 2015 World Cup in these lands, according to the Daily Telegraph's Paul Hayward.

"Studying the last four World Cup winners the RFU calculated average team ages of 27, 28, 27 and 28. The number of caps held by Australia (1999), England (2003), South Africa (2007) and New Zealand (2011) was 622, 638, 668 and 709 for Graham Henry’s All Blacks, the most experienced of the quartet.

"These studies nail down the kind of elements England will need in their quest to win a second world title 12 years after their first. The names mentioned are theoretical — and subject to change — but the new head coach can already draw on a core of the players who flopped in New Zealand.

"Wilkinson’s place at No 10 is now fully open to Toby Flood, who will be 30 in 2015 and could have 79 caps by then.

"Ben Youngs, Chris Ashton, Ben Foden and the ferry-jumping Manu Tuilagi are other likely regulars in the next four-year cycle. They could be joined in the backs by the exciting Gloucester wing Charlie Sharples and Owen Farrell, son of Andy, who is part of Lancaster’s temporary coaching team.

"In the pack, Tom Croft, Tom Wood and James Haskell are the projected back row with Courtney Lawes and Dave Attwood at lock and Joe Marler joining Dylan Hartley and Dan Cole at the shoving end.

"This is not RFU propaganda. These projections were drawn up long before the slew of leaks and are not evidence of Andrew’s department trying to pick the England team."

Jonny WIlkinson strikes a familiar pose © Getty Images

The Guardian's Robert Kitson looks at the legacy Jonny Wilkinson will leave behind following his retirement from international rugby.

"On the eve of England's 2011 World Cup quarter-final against France in Auckland, Jonny Wilkinson received a fax from his long-time friend and guru, Steve Black. "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did but people will never forget how you made them feel. Make us all feel wonderful. We'll never forget." In Jonny's case, Black was employing a little poetic licence. There is not a single English rugby follower who will ever forget Wilkinson's World Cup-clinching drop goal in 2003, nor the utter delirium it prompted.

Finally, it is all over. Wilko and out. If anyone deserves a restful Test retirement it is Jonny. He did not so much lay down his body for his country as donate it entirely to Twickenham, limb by limb, joint by joint and organ by organ. Even had he not broken every points-scoring record known to man he would still have gone down in history, along with Lewis Moody, as the ultimate English patient. Many will be quietly relieved he has now walked away, rather than be carted off to the knacker's yard.”

Former England maverick Austin Healey provides his take on Jonny Wilkinson's career in the Daily Mirror.

"History will fondly remember Jonny Wilkinson as the Geoff Hurst of rugby – the man who kicked England to World Cup glory.

It will also view him as the most famous rugby player of the modern era and the best kicker of all time.

He has probably been the most professional, in terms of sacrifice and dedication. Certainly in the top three, with World Cup-winning team-mates Neil Back and Richard Hill."

In the Sun, former England skipper Will Carling pays tribute to Jonny Wilkinson.

"As an English sporting icon, Jonny Wilkinson deserves to be ranked right up there with our other World Cup-winning hero Geoff Hurst. Hopefully, it will not be more than 40 years before England win the rugby World Cup again.

But however many times we manage it, that first one will always be extra special.

And the memory of Jonny landing that last-gasp winning drop goal in the 2003 final — with his "wrong" right foot — is one that will be savoured by Englishmen for as long as the game is played.

And I honestly can't think of anyone who deserves to be remembered with such fondness more than Jonny."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy provides his take on the legend that is Jonny Wilkinson.

"It shouldn’t have ended the way it did. After all the graft and the glory, the acclaim and the commitment, all the injury, pain and all those hours and years of lonely practice and rehab, Jonny Wilkinson deserved better.

The last image of the iconic No 10 was captured at Eden Park, Auckland, on October 8 this year as England imploded against France in a World Cup quarter-final that was there for the taking. In the final moments of that grim ordeal, there was Wilkinson on the bench, head in his hands.

It was a stark, sad sight. Here was the man who had done so much to deliver Test success having to accept desperate, crushing disappointment."

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs pays tribute to Jonny Wilkinson following his retirement from international rugby.

"Even in his valedictory message, released, as is the modern vogue, on his own website yesterday evening, there were echoes of the demons that have pursued Jonny Wilkinson since he first asked his dad to stop the car on the way to a mini-rugby session at the age of seven so that he could release his anxiety by being sick in the bushes.

That fear of failure never left him. In fact, it defined him, a tormented soul in search not only of perfection but also of inner peace. Even if he can be said to have achieved the former in dropping the goal that sent a nation into raptures, he never got close to the latter.

Nothing came easily to Wilkinson, the exemplar of one who willed himself to greatness rather than assumed it would alight on his shoulders."

Writing in The Observer, Eddie Butler previews the task facing England's interim head coach Stuart Lancaster.

"The rebuilding has begun. The first blocks were laid on Thursday, under the cover of the Varsity Match, and England now have a coaching team for the Six Nations: Stuart Lancaster, Graham Rowntree and Andy Farrell. They wore white at their unveiling, confessed to inexperience, but promised passion and energy. It was as if a shaft of light had penetrated the bunker.

"The new team have time to plan the selection of their squad for the Six Nations. Or at least they can enjoy their Christmas before revealing just how radical they are prepared to be as caretakers. With no promise of work beyond March, they could play safe and stick with an experienced England squad, a group so full of remorse and guilt after their failings at the World Cup that they would seize their chance at redemption. Wouldn't they?

"This line may be tempting given the sticky twist to the fixture list. England are on the road in the first two rounds of the Six Nations, at Murrayfield and in Rome, neither a good place to go with experimentation on your mind. Any revolution must have self‑belief at its core and that only comes with winning."

England assistant coach Graham Rowntree reveals to The Guardian's Rob Kitson that the RFU's England World Cup review was 'painful'.

"The England forwards coach, Graham Rowntree, the only survivor from Martin Johnson's World Cup management team, has spoken of the "almost unbearable" anguish he felt after players' supposedly confidential comments about the coaching staff were made public. Rowntree said he and his fellow coaches endured a hugely difficult period, during which he feared he would also lose his job.

"Johnson and Brian Smith have resigned and Mike Ford and John Wells have been relieved of their duties since the failed campaign in New Zealand. Rowntree said the post-tournament furore had been tough for all concerned.

"Every day I wondered what the future held," said Rowntree. "What the next job was, whether I still had my current job, the whole uncertainty has almost been unbearable. There have been dark times. It was painful the way everything was packaged up on and off the field."

"Rowntree said the Rugby Football Union's World Cup review process had been "messy", despite his having emerged with universal credit. He now, temporarily at least, has an expanded job title and is desperate to ensure the England players feel "proud again" about pulling on their national jersey."

Tom Wood is one of the names in the frame to skipper England © Getty Images

Chris Foy of the Daily Mail gives his backing to Tom Wood as England's next captain.

"Step by step, the RFU are putting their house in order. Last week, they clarified Rob Andrew’s role and the structure around the England team. Yesterday, they appointed coaches for the Six Nations.

The bigger picture is also in hand because Nick Mallett and Wayne Smith have been spoken to as the search for a long-term management line-up intensifies.

Come the new year, Stuart Lancaster and his fellow caretakers will need to fine-tune their plans for the revised England squad to be named on January 11. They must approach that task with the other major box to be ticked — the captaincy."

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs looks at the appointment of Andy Farrell and his original reluctance to take the post.

"Andy Farrell had to be “pushed and prodded” into accepting the position of England backs coach after initially rejecting the offer from Stuart Lancaster to join his caretaker coaching team for the Six Nations Championship.

It is understood Lancaster, who has been confirmed as England's interim head coach as the Rugby Football Union continue their search for a permanent successor to Martin Johnson, first approached Farrell last Friday to see if was interested in the position.

Farrell, who was appointed Saracens head coach last year, initially turned down the offer because of his commitment to his club. Farrell’s contract with the English champions runs until 2014.

It was only after Saracens chief executive Edward Griffiths and the club’s director of rugby Mark McCall made it clear to Farrell that he had their backing did he change his mind this week."

Who will lift the Varsity cup this year? © Getty Images

Cambridge captain Matt Guinness-King, talking to Brendan Gallagher of the Daily Telegraph, speaks of his pride at captaining the light blues in the Varsity.

"Canadian Matt Guinness-King went head to head with Dan Carter in the 2003 World Cup, but he considers captaining Cambridge against Oxford at the Nomura Varsity match at Twickenham on Thursday afternoon as the pinnacle of his career as he bows out of the game.

“I couldn’t think of a better team to be playing for and a better bunch of guys to be playing with in my final game – if it all comes together, it would be a fantastic way to finish,” said Guinness-King, whose Cambridge side have won seven of their 13 matches so far this term.

“It’s a unique feeling within this club. Here the experience is so complete. When you’re playing for Canada you’re achieving athletic excellence and really pushing yourself next to a top-notch bunch of guys. But at Cambridge you fulfil so many goals in your life. You look at academic achievement, the friends you make from studying together, working out and playing together and you can see that you tick so many different boxes.

Newcastle Falcons hope Jonny Wilkinson can reverse decline in attendances when he returns to Kingston Park with Toulon this weekend. The Times' John Westerby reports (via paywall).

"There was a time when Newcastle Falcons, with Jonny Wilkinson in their ranks, would travel away from home and put a few extra thousand on the gate for their opponents.

"This evening, the Falcons are expecting the process to work in reverse. When Wilkinson returns to the club for the first time since he left in 2009, as a replacement for Toulon in the Amlin Challenge Cup tie, Newcastle are hoping to attract their best crowd of the season.

"That does not mean that there will be a sell-out, because home attendances at Kingston Park are in decline. The average crowd for Premiership matches has fallen from 6,177 in Wilkinson’s final season, in 2008-09, to 5,316 last season and, in five Aviva Premiership home games this season, to 4,528.

"It is not an easy sell for the club’s marketing department because a number of leading players have left in recent seasons. The loss of quality is evident at a club who finished eleventh last season and are six points adrift at the bottom of the table this season."

Half a century after Cambridge were proclaimed the finest ever Varsity match side, its veterans return to Twickenham. The Guardian's Frank Keating reports.

"On Wednesday night in London's swish Savoy hotel will gather 15 greybeards in faded, threadbare light blue blazers, a few of them a little shaky on their pins, but each with soft-boiled rheumy eyes glowing furnace-bright in the recollected glories of their prime. And on Thursday they will take their hangovers to Twickenham to share a slap-up commemorative lunch with 13 of their deadly rivals from a precise half‑century ago. Then, together, the 26 fond old codgers will watch the 130th University rugby match.

"When this junketing band of Cambridge ancients beat Oxford in the 80th contest on 11 December 1961 they established a timeless record which proclaims them still as the finest Varsity match XV in history as the only one ever to remain unbeaten throughout their season – P14 W14, points for 249, against 49. It is particularly notable for in those days both universities would prepare for Twickenham with a string of matches against the grandest clubs in the land, full‑strength teams packed with international players from such as Cardiff, Newport, Gloucester, Leicester, Coventry, Bedford, Harlequins, and Northampton. The Cambridge immortals of '61 beat them all. No wonder old men's recollections on Tuesday night will be rich and roseate."

Mike Brown has shone for Harlequins this season © Getty Images

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mick Cleary argues that potential England caretaker coach Stuart Lancaster needs to take note of how the next generation of stars perform in this weekend's Heineken Cup.

"There is one man who must be ringside for this coming weekend’s Heineken Cup action, and that man is Stuart Lancaster, the caretaker England coach.

Now, if Stuart Lancaster gets the nod, then he will have no difficulty in being at the Stoop on Friday night to witness born-again Harlequins take on European aristocracy in Toulouse, to see at first hand if the highly-regarded Quins captain, Chris Robshaw, really is the man to lead England through the Six Nations.

What, too, of promising 21-year- old prop, Joe Marler, or Nick Easter in the back row? Will the 2012 championship be a tournament too far for the old slugger as England sow the seeds for the 2015 World Cup?

Mike Brown at full-back, feisty and fast, Ugo Monye, fit and raring again, Danny Care to challenge Ben Youngs – there is plenty of illuminating viewing in prospect."

Chris Foy, of the Daily Mail, looks at a bad weekend of ill-discipline by some of England's players.

"Four of England’s disastrous World Cup squad will find out on Monday whether they could be banned for more indiscipline in Premiership matches over the weekend.

The worst incident involved England winger Chris Ashton, who sparked a fight on the touchline at Leicester’s 30-25 win against Northampton by grabbing hold of Alesana Tuilagi by the dreadlocks and shirt and dragging him into the advertising boards.

But Ashton’s tackle went unpunished while Tuilagi and England captaincy candidate Tom Wood were shown red cards for their parts in the 14th-minute bust-up. Courtney Lawes was also involved, appearing to throw a punch at the Samoan."

Have RFU acting chief executive Stephen Brown and PGB chairman and RFU board member Ian Metcalfe got the Union on the right track? © Getty Images

Writing in the Sunday Times (via paywall), Stephen Jones is not convinced by the RFU's attempts to clean up their act.

"Revival? Where? Perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the shambles at Twickenham lies in what is deemed there to constitute a revival. Last week, we were encouraged to hail better days, possibly because the application of a load of manure is meant to nurture green shoots.

"What evidence for a revival actually exists? You need more than a new PR company and a few good intentions. Two men stood before a media conference and offered a ringing apology for the shocking play, coaching, administration and discipline.

"It was big of them since neither Ian Metcalfe of the Professional Game Board nor Steve Brown, acting chief executive, had been responsible. They were merely apologists though their appearance constituted the first occasion in months at which Twickenham grandees had not simply put forward their own agenda."

Writing in The Observer, Eddie Butler outlines who he thinks should get what role in the RFU shake-up.

"It is the unanimous opinion of the authors that the next chief executive officer of the Rugby Football Union shall be a woman. Having conducted probing analysis of the male contribution to rugby's governance, it is their conclusion that English men over 40 think clearly only when panting. The over-mature hunter-gatherer needs to feel the pang of hunger and the perspiration of pursuit before he functions effectively.

"Allow him to settle into an office-bound, sedentary lifestyle and he falls prey to indolence and inefficiency, where the only activity likely to stir him is the protection of his ticket allocation. English men need to be aerobically challenged, leaving English women to organise and lead. Attention to detail is their watchword. England are not called rugby's mother country for nothing.

"And who might this Boudicca be? Tempted by the need to stamp out treachery, there was initial interest in Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller and Dame Stella Rimington, presuming them to be two separate people (with heads of the intelligence service it is not always easy to tell)."

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Fran Cotton reaffirms his belief that Nick Mallett should be the next England coach.

"The worst is over. I firmly believe the storm that has been raging around England rugby has abated and now we are entering calmer waters the job of everybody concerned, on and off the field, is to get everything ship shape for the long haul ahead.

"...As for the main appointment, after the Six Nations but before the summer tour of South Africa, my golden ticket remains Nick Mallett in complete overall charge with Northampton’s Jim Mallinder and Dorian West working under him with the understanding that if that duo step up to the mark – and I would expect exactly that – they take over the moment the 2015 World Cup is over. I like ordered succession, look at the Germany football teams that year in, year out do so well in major competitions. The successor always seems to be known.

"The main man has to have complete control of the team in every way and select his own coaching team regardless of how England have gone in the Six Nations. My hope is that if Mallett were appointed to the main job he would chose Mallinder and West as his main lieutenants but that decision would be entirely his own and we would have to respect whatever he decided."

Maggie Alphonsi is poised to lead the England women's rugby team to a clean sweep against world champions New Zealand, but before that she chats to the Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary.

"Maggie Alphonsi was another of those high-achieving sportswomen not to flicker on the radar of those tunnel-visioned people who compile the shortlist for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year programme.

"Mind you, if she had featured on their horizon, she would more likely have demolished their antennae rather than make it gently twitch, a ferocious, fast-moving, all-encompassing figure closing in on her target.

"Alphonsi wins her 60th cap on Saturday afternoon as England take on New Zealand, an openside flanker as accomplished in her own field as Richie McCaw is in his.

"In a time of such introspective gloom for English rugby, it’s nigh on negligent that the recent achievements of the women’s rugby team have not been more highly acclaimed. One victory over an All Black side would be a thing of wonder (the men have not managed it since 2003) but two within four days is rather special."

Former England boss Martin Johnson put his recent woes behind him by turning out for amateur side in Leicestershire alongside some old school friends. The Daily Mail reports.

"The game, organised for a club member’s 40th birthday with other ex-pupils from the schools Johnson attended, would have been the perfect antidote for the past few weeks, too — if his team had not lost 24-17.

"Richard Lainchbury, who played for the Harborough veterans side, said: ‘He may be a World Cup winner but he’s never played for Market Harborough first team, so he still had to prove himself. The game was played in the right spirit and he’s certainly not lost any of his intensity.’

Hiring Nick Mallett to lead England would be hammer blow for the RFU’s coach-development programme according to the Daily Telegraph's Paul Hayward.

"All the indications are that Mallett is the favoured candidate, post-Six Nations. But this should not pass without scrutiny, even if the inane charge of Little Englanderism always attends discussions about whether governing bodies should dial international rescue.

"Football plumped for Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello because it convinced itself (wrongly) there was no English or British contender. Rugby can make no such claim. Hiring Mallett would be a slap in the chops for the RFU’s own extensive coach-development programme, as well as Jim Mallinder, the leading Premiership-based nominee.

"The clear message from the flirtation with Mallett is that the world’s richest rugby nation is incapable of finding a coach from its own ranks to govern an England team in a World Cup on their own turf. It’s just not true."

The RFU needs a manager to look after the non-playing side but it requires a singular man to walk a fine line so adeptly according to Shaun Edwards in The Guardian.

"So England want an Alan Phillips. Easier said than done, I'm afraid.

"Item four on the 12-point "to do" list suggested by the Professional Game Board and recommended by the RFU board on Wednesday night was the following: "The support structures around the senior England team will be re-evaluated, including the appointment of a Senior England Team Manager to handle all non-playing responsibilities of the team."

"England had one once, but Roger Uttley was one of those to fall foul of the broom that was Clive Woodward. Whether they can get another in the mould of the men they give as examples – Darren Shand of New Zealand and Phillips of Wales – is another matter.

"I don't know about Shand, but I've had four seasons working alongside Alan and I can tell you he's a singular man; not something easy to replicate because he makes light of walking a difficult line. He has to be an integral part of the Welsh set-up but has to be careful not to tread on too many toes. Respect is key and you can't buy that off a shelf."

English rugby's devastating period of in-fighting and unrest is in danger of being prolonged by a wave of legal action in response to the leaking of highly sensitive World Cup reports. Daily Mail's Chris Foy reports

"The RFU have hired former Scotland Yard detectives to hunt for the mole who handed over the confidential documents. While the union await a report, which is due to reach them in the next week, Sportsmail understands certain individuals whose reputations have been damaged by the leaks are preparing to sue the culprit — if one emerges.

"There is also a possibility that the organisation for whom the leaker worked may be sued.

"Speculation about the identity of the source has been rife in rugby circles in the last week. Many in the game, including those within the England squad, suspect one particular individual, though without firm proof."

Writing in The Times (via paywall), Mike Atherton wades into the fallout from England's troubled Rugby World Cup campaign.

"The massive increase in revenues to sport, brought about by the revolution of satellite television, has produced a kind of bloated sporting welfare state in which players are cosseted and infantilised, led sheep-like and mute by an army of coaches keen above all else to protect their positions and justify their roles.

"If the World Cup has taught rugby anything at all, and indeed sport in general, it is that this kind of sporting welfare state mentality is self-defeating. Ultimate responsibility lies with the players.

"None of which is to suggest that there is no place for an enlarged backroom staff. The rise of the England cricket team has been accompanied by this phenomenon and nobody who has watched would deny the impact had by the specialist fielding, batting and bowling coaches, and fitness staff. But Andy Flower, the man ultimately responsible for organising the show, has never once moved away from a basic philosophy that demands the players take responsibility for their actions."

Former England hooker Brian Moore believes the Rugby Football Union are right to take their time over the appointment of the next England coach. Read his thoughts in the Daily Telegraph.

"After the carnage of the past few months there was every chance that the Rugby Football Union would continue to make bad decisions and indulge in yet another bout of internecine warfare.

"That it appears not to have done so proves that there are some sensible people left at Twickenham and those with the interests of English rugby at heart will pray that this is the point at which the lessons of the past have been learnt.

"There are still very difficult decisions to be made about how the union is governed and how the competing interests of amateur and professional rugby can be accommodated so that the whole game can start to move on.

"Of all the decisions those pertaining to this issue will, ultimately, prove to be by far the most important; even the appointment of the new head coach is secondary to getting the administration of the game right."

The apologies were strangely soothing but there were echoes of the bad old Twickenham days of cosy back-scratching at yesterday's Rugby Football Union press conference, according to The Guardian's Rob Kitson.

"Some may even be inclined to view Wednesday 30 November as the day the RFU finally came to its senses and changed direction. Until, that is, they read the morning papers. The RFU's decision to retain Rob Andrew in a senior role, effectively bolting the door on any possible return by Sir Clive Woodward, was just one of a raft of policy decisions made at a directors' board meeting that lasted virtually all day. It threatens, nevertheless, to propel the union straight back into the same old hole it has been lying in for months.

"What has realistically altered, the hordes will cry, if Andrew is still involved in identifying both England's caretaker coach and the new head coach? Who will be in place before the South Africa tour in June? The public perception, whether unfair or not, is that Andrew is not a man whose rugby vision is as far-sighted as it should be. That widespread lack of trust could yet undermine the best efforts of Metcalfe and Stephen Brown, the new acting chief executive, to restore English rugby's reputation on and off the field.

"It is a pity because, in most other respects, common sense is finally threatening to win the day. Correctly, it has been decided not to rush the appointment of a head coach. There is no desire, either, to have a performance director hovering over the head coach's shoulder. Instead, the new man will report directly to the chief executive. "The direct relationship is important," Metcalfe emphasised. "Most head coaches will say: 'I don't want a buffer; I don't mind having accountability as long as I have responsibility.'"

Brian Ashton was replaced by Martin Johnson at the RFU © Getty Images

Former England captain Phil Vickery, in his column for the Daily Mail, calls on Brian Ashton to take control of the England team for the 2012 Six Nations.

"In many ways Brian Ashton would be the perfect caretaker manager for the next few months and for the Six Nations. The first thing this England team need is to learn to think for themselves - and I couldn’t think of anyone better at encouraging that.

He is the type of coach who looks after players, helps them get some confidence and playing rugby again. His outlook will be refreshing for the guys."

The Guardian's Rob Kitson looks ahead to what could be a key week for the RFU.

"England are poised to appoint a caretaker Six Nations coaching team featuring Stuart Lancaster and Graham Rowntree, but its confirmation will depend on a meeting of the Rugby Football Union board on Wednesday. No decisions have been ratified and World Cup coaches and backroom staff are sweating on the outcome.

While it is understood Lancaster and Rowntree, whose RFU contract still has six months to run, are willing to take temporary charge, one Twickenham insider suggested that Rob Andrew's leading role in the elite rugby department was under threat. "Rob's still fighting battles and he's got to survive tomorrow," the source said. "That's the primary concern for everyone in the department. Then it's a case of what we can do in the short term. No one has spoken to the coaches because everything is on hold until after the meeting."

After another hectic day, on which Martyn Thomas was elbowed aside from his role as acting chief executive and Stephen Brown took his place, the RFU is all but resigned to the fact it will not have a full-time replacement for Martin Johnson until after the Six Nations. Nick Mallett, Jim Mallinder, Eddie Jones, John Kirwan, Wayne Smith and Jake White have expressed an interest in taking charge of the England team. The World Cup coaches John Wells, Mike Ford and Dave Alred, all the subject of unflattering leaked comments from players last week, appear to be on borrowed time. Those in the firing line are still seething at the breach of confidentiality. "It's unforgiveable," said a member of the coaching staff. "I don't think any player will ever contribute to an anonymous questionnaire again."

RFU disciplinary chief Judge Jeff Blackett, talking to Gavin Mairs of the Telegraph, hits back after aspects of his report into the RFU were dismissed by Charles Flint in the latest high-profile event at Twickenham.

"Judge Jeff Blackett, the Rugby Football Union’s disciplinary officer, says his life has been made “very unpleasant” by elements at the top of the governing body since the publication of his report on the sacking of John Steele as chief executive.

Blackett says critical articles have appeared in the press, which he is certain have been inspired by briefing from within the RFU. He has also accused some RFU board members of ignoring him and his wife Sally at social functions.

The high court judge said he has also apologised on behalf of the RFU council to Andy Reed, one of the two independent members of the five-man panel that conducted the review, “for the disgraceful and obviously planted article” in a newspaper “questioning his integrity”."

Paul Rees, of the Guardian, believes Stuart Lancaster and Graham Rowntree have already been handed the reins for the 2012 Six Nations.

"The Rugby Football Union will over the next three days attempt to reassert its authority after months of infighting, sackings, resignations, leaks and out‑of-control speculation have made it the laughing stock of the world game. It will start on Wednesday by appointing an interim coaching team to take charge of England for the Six Nations and agreeing a process to find a full-time replacement for Martin Johnson, who resigned as England team manager this month.

The RFU's board of directors will discuss recommendations from the Professional Game Board, which has spent a month sifting through reviews of England's World Cup, which were leaked last week. Stuart Lancaster, the England Saxons coach, and Graham Rowntree, the senior side's scrummaging coach, are expected to be asked to take charge on a temporary basis."

Brian Ashton, talking to Chris Hewett of the Independent, claims he is yet to hear from the RFU about a potential caretaker role.

"These are startling times for everyone involved in rugby, but few people have been as flabbergasted in recent weeks as Brian Ashton, the former England coach who currently spends his on-field time in Lancashire, working with the National Division One club Fylde.

Ashton woke up yesterday morning to find himself being widely linked with a return to Twickenham in a caretaker role with red-rose team, who are currently in need of leadership after the resignation of Martin Johnson as manager a week ago. It came as something of a shock to the system, to say the least."

Wayne Smith appears to have ruled himself back into the reckoning © Getty Images

The Dominion Post's Marc Hinton looks at the growing confusion surrounding who will take on the reins as England head coach.

"This is getting ridiculous. First Nick Mallet rules himself out of the vacant England rugby coaching job.

Then in again.

And now he's raised Wayne Smith's name as a potential candidate.

Is there a high-profile coach out there who hasn't been connected with this problematic position in charge of the world's most under-achieving rugby nation?

It would appear not."

The Guardian's Paul Rees argues that in the wake of the latest decision involving Mike Tindall, the RFU has lost all sense of direction.

"When Martyn Thomas, the acting chief executive of the Rugby Football Union, announced on 12 October that the governing body's legal and governance director, Karena Vleck, had been asked to investigate allegations of player misconduct during the World Cup in New Zealand, he issued a strong warning.

Any player, he said, found to have breached the RFU's elite player agreement or code of conduct faced punishments ranging from a fine to an international suspension. He added that Vleck would look into all the claims of misconduct and that there would be discussions with Rob Andrew, the elite rugby director, and Martin Johnson, the then team manager, about whether any investigated player would be available for the national side in the future."

The Independent's Chris Hewett provides his take on the latest development involving Mike Tindall.

"Mike Tindall, the England centre whose drunken antics during the early stages of the recent World Cup in New Zealand were a significant factor in the collapse of the national team's campaign, was last night reinstated to the elite squad by the Rugby Football Union's outgoing chief executive Martyn Thomas, whose decision will be widely seen as the latest blow struck in Twickenham's increasingly destructive committee-room conflict. Tindall also finds himself £10,000 better off, having had a £25,000 fine cut by two-fifths on appeal.

The Gloucester midfielder and occasional England captain, who earned a World Cup winner's medal in 2003 and also happens to be the newest member of the extended Royal family, found himself plastered all over the newspapers at home and abroad – not to mention every celebrity website – after drinking himself stupid during a players' night out following the opening pool victory over Argentina in September. Security cameras at a Queenstown bar showed him in an advanced state of inebriation, canoodling with a blonde woman who, it was later claimed, was an old friend of Tindall and his wife of a few weeks, Zara Phillips."

Former England hooker Brain Moore highlights the Rugby Football Union's failure to communicate with the grassroots of the game in England, in his column in the Daily Telegraph.

"What is clear is that the average club member - the ones who pay their subs, work on the committees for no reward, mark out the pitches, run the bar - has no idea about and is given no help in understanding how the RFU works, who does what and where responsibility starts and finishes.

"It is no good for those at Twickenham to say that these people are led by the media and that their perceptions are shaped by opinion and not fact because whose fault is that? Why are they unable to communicate the reality to their own stakeholders?"

The Irish Independent's Vincent Hogan offers his distinctive view on former England manager Martin Johnson.

"Before England mistook the Rugby World Cup for an epic stag, I never liked Martin Johnson. Now, inexplicably, I do. Just when the entire planet seems to be crashing down upon him with such sour, malignant focus, I can't see the former England captain and manager as anything but an oversized, vaguely appealing lump who thought he could control a zoo by scowling.

"If that's a crime, he's guilty. But, with Johnson, you get what it says on the tin. To the best of my knowledge, he's not a noted conversationalist. Nobody has ever gone public on him having a secret life on the Leicester stand-up circuit."

Will Rob Andrew be able to ride out the RFU tornado? © Getty Images

As a player, he achieved more than most. But after a disastrous World Cup and with England in turmoil, the top man at Twickenham is now finding the going tough, according to The Observer's Eddie Butler.

"Rugby came easily to Rob Andrew: 71 caps, three grand slams, a World Cup final and two Lions tours speak of a glittering career. When his playing days were over, he stayed in the game, moving seamlessly into coaching, into management and then administration, progressing from job to job according to the rhythm of age, ambition and experience. He climbed rugby's pole without a grease stain. He was squeaky, as in clean; the Teflon Don, the boss to whom nothing stuck. Until now. Suddenly, he is the man on the run through the ruins of Twickenham.

"There is fight in Andrew, a steeliness not always associated with the outside half position. According to folklore, the number 10 is the dainty creator, beloved of the Welsh, who still adore the idea of the tiny string-puller, making giants move to his tune.

"Not Andrew. He played with prosaic ruthlessness, keeping mighty England's forwards content, rolling them on with a precise kicking game. He won games with drop goals – a late one, to add to six penalties, against Wales in 1986; an equally late one to beat Australia in the 1995 World Cup quarter final. If England had wanted poetry, they would have picked Stuart Barnes. They didn't. The mercurial Bath player won 10 caps; Andrew 61 more. England wanted control and coolness and authority. Fancy was for others."

The Scotland on Sunday's Iain Morrison believes that Sir Ian McGeechan could help England out of a hole if the Rugby Football Union have the courage to appoint him.

"Time is running out like an episode of 24 without Jack Bauer to save the day, so the obvious solution is to turn to the rugby equivalent of IBM.

"In the old days before the advent of PCs there was a saying in the corporate world that no one ever got fired for buying an IBM mainframe. If Twickenham want an obvious win they must go for the obvious choice – an interim coach who commands immediate respect across the board, someone who knows the game in England, someone with good club connections who also knows the players. If the English press was already onside then so much the better because Twickenham needs some good news.

"If the RFU want an easy win ahead of the Six Nations, they have to appoint Sir Ian McGeechan as interim England coach. Admittedly, he’s under contract to Bath but money solves most problems and the RFU made an £8.7 million profit last year.

"At 65 he is the perfect age for the post he previously turned down at the end of the last millennium. He is a proud Scot but that Headingley accent is still there and he knows the English scene better than almost anyone after time at Northampton, Wasps and now Bath.

"Moreover, McGeechan made his name with the Lions, where forging bonds between disparate players in a short time is an absolute necessity.

"That is exactly what England need now for all sorts of reasons."

Rob Andrew is struggling to survive at the centre of the RFU tornado, according to the Sunday Telegraph's Paul Hayward.

"Quite why Andrew wants to remain part of this mess (beyond the obvious explanations of power and salary) when broadsheet newspaper editorials are calling for him to go is a touch baffling, but at least part of the explanation is 2015 and the plans his department already have in place to deliver a side capable of winning the tournament on home turf.

"This chance could be snatched away as early as mid-week at an RFU board meeting, or when a new chief executive lowers his rear on to the HQ ejector seat.

"About the easiest reform for the new boss would be to clear out the man associated, however unfairly, with the rise and fall of Andy Robinson, Brian Ashton and now Johnson, who has taken a lot of shots on Andrew’s behalf and displays no urge to blame him, at least in public.

"A lethal element, still, could be the legal emails suggesting a possible hush-money payment to Annabel Newton, the New Zealand hotel worker, who appears to have falsified part of her evidence against James Haskell, Chris Ashton and Dylan Hartley but was nevertheless subjected to thoroughly objectionable sexual comments by Ashton and Haskell, according to the transcript published in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph.

"If Andrew saw the emails suggesting that the solution to this obnoxious behaviour was to pay the victim to stay quiet — and raised no objection — then he has a case to answer way beyond the confines of a World Cup campaign gone wrong."

Rob Andrew could yet hang on to his role at the Rugby Football Union as support in the organisation is growing for him amid overwhelming public criticism during a torrid week for the organisation, sccording to the Sunday Telegraph's Brendan Gallagher.

"Many RFU members feel the elite rugby director has become the target of an ill-disguised campaign to oust him by parts of the media and want him to stay to take control of the escalating crisis.

"They are determined the media should not be allowed to act as judge and jury and want the “head on a plate” of the person responsible for leaking the damaging Rugby Players’ Association reports.

"The issue will come to a head at a meeting of the board of directors on Wednesday when the acting chief executive, Martyn Thomas, who has never hidden his support for a return to the RFU for Sir Clive Woodward, could force a vote of confidence in Andrew.

"But an RFU council member told The Sunday Telegraph that there was widespread alarm within the organisation about who was “captaining the ship” and that now was not the time to be ditching an experienced older hand who had shown his willingness to fight the RFU’s corner when others have been diving for cover."

The Sunday Herald's Paul Lewis reflects on England's litany of woes.

"A coach like Henry would quickly sort all that out - were he even interested in coaching another national side - but England rugby has more issues yet. Like their inability to put together a team with athletes who can catch and pass.

"England scored 20 tries in their five World Cup games, which sounds good until you realise that 16 of them came against Romania and Georgia. Wales, generally recognised as a better team, scored 29 from their seven games (21 against Namibia and Fiji). The All Blacks scored 40 tries in their seven matches.

"One of the key differences between the hemispheres is the ability to create and finish. Australian and New Zealand rugby players grow up honing ball skills instinctively."

Martin Johnson came to the defence of his former charges on Friday © Getty Images

The former England manager Martin Johnson came out fighting over the recent World Cup recriminations but his defence was unconvincing. The Guardian's Rob Kitson reports.

"Martin Johnson could clearly take no more. The prospect of stewing in silence for another day, let alone another week, was too much, the pent-up frustration too great. "There are opinions and there are truths," he said. "Do not take extreme opinions written in extreme circumstances to be fact." He sounded like a barrister attempting to persuade a court his client's confession had been extracted under duress in a police cell where no one could hear the screams.

"It was a noble effort with a couple of glaring weaknesses. First, the comments to which he was referring were extracted with the aid of neither thumbscrews nor water torture. They were the honest assessments, albeit leaked without permission, of international sportsmen who were under no pressure to say anything bad at all. Nor was it simply one or two individuals belly-aching about the quality of the food at meal times.

"Second, Johnson is no longer in charge of the England team. He is a mere citizen once again with his nose pressed to the glass like everyone else. At times it seemed that new truth has not entirely sunken in. "The fact we have let it get to here is disappointing and the way the game and the team is now being portrayed is damaging."

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs reports that James Haskell is threatening to sue hotel worker Annabel Newton over false allegations of sexual harassment.

"Telegraph Sport can disclose Haskell’s legal representatives have sent a letter to Annabel Newton, a Dunedin hotel worker, demanding that she withdraw her allegations and confirm that the incident on Sept 9 was no more than “light-hearted banter between herself and the players”.

"The deadline for the apology expired on Friday night and Haskell’s legal representatives have warned Newton that without it their client “will take the appropriate steps to clear his name and to recover his financial loss.”

"Haskell’s lawyer also warns Newton that a video of the incident, filmed by Hartley, will be made public to demonstrate “the falsehood” of the allegations that she has made.

"Haskell is thought to have already run up legal fees of over £80,000 as he bids to clear his name while the fallout from the controversy resulted in a lucrative offer from a Super 15 club being withdrawn."

The Daily Telegraph's Will Greenwood describes how a visit to a hospital to aid the UK’s injured service men and women inspired him to lace up his boots once against for the latest Help for Heroes clash at Twickenham.

"Known to all as Tedworth House, it sits within the grounds of the Tidworth Bulford Garrison and looks as grand as Downton Abbey.

"Yet as you drive up to its front door it is not the shingle pathway, the tall columns, or the huge glassed facade you notice, but the sign reading “Under Construction”. For a place that helps limbless people to rebuild, it shows a keen sense of humour.

"David Richmond is the chief operating officer and goes a long way to explaining the tone of the place. Almost four years ago he was shot in the leg serving his country. He lost 10 centimetres of his right femur and today, as a 44 year-old, he is close to a medical discharge himself.

"He is brimming with passion for the place, which he says is all about dealing with the hearts and minds of those who have been injured, of living out Tedworth’s adopted motto: “Inspire, Enable, Support”.

"David aims to deal with the person, not the soldier. There is no direct military approach; there is routine, yes, but there is freedom away from the barking sergeant major."

Only two years ago the London club seemed to be on the brink of collapse after the 'bloodgate’ saga. Yet not only did they survive, they have thrived and are still unbeaten this season. The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary reports.

"Mick Cleary: Image is important and Harlequins have shown that you can transcend seemingly awful things and come out the other side. Is that a lesson for the RFU, perhaps, that a besmirched reputation doesn’t need to last forever, as long as the right things are done to repair the damage?

"Conor O'Shea: Sport changes so quickly, as do people’s perceptions. We know that we’re not a good side now just as we won’t be a bad side when we lose. This group wants to create history in a different way for the club. We want to win and we want to conduct ourselves properly.

"Mick Cleary: Was there a mission plan when you came in (in March 2010, after Dean Richards had resigned from the club over 'Bloodgate’ in August 2009)?

"Conor O'Shea: To me, the players are everything. It’s up to them to define what they’re about. I did say that we wanted to be the best club in Europe. The players identified a style of play, so that it’s recognisable and everyone can articulate it clearly. There’s a lot of talk about the right culture and that’s the biggest thing I looked at.

"Culture does not just happen. It has to evolve and you have to all buy into it. That’s why it’s important to have young players, such as Chris, commit to the club long-term."

Rob Andrew is facing calls from all corners to resign © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Paul Hayward talks to Rob Andrew about his role at the RFU and why he is not resigning from his post amid the worst scandal to hit the organisation in recent years.

"Rob Andrew says he discussed “sending a player home” with Martin Johnson, the then England manager, during the calamitous World Cup campaign, but now faces his own battle to avoid expulsion from the national set-up.

As darkness fell outside Andrew’s Twickenham office, a small note of shock flared in the eyes of the Rugby Football Union’s elite rugby director. Did he hear himself described on Radio 4 that morning as “the Sepp Blatter of rugby”?

Pause. Engage. Andrew rolled on with a passionate defence of his record.

He refused to be disheartened by editorials in national broadsheet newspapers calling for him to go or Sir Clive Woodward’s observation at the weekend: “The absolute key question for me is whether he has the skill-set to appoint the new coach. Experience says he does not.”

The Guardian's Paul Rees puts together a series of questions which he wants answered in light of the recent turmoil at the RFU.

"1. What happens next?

Assuming the Rugby Football Union stops leaking, on Wednesday the Professional Game Board will present its recommendations to the RFU's board of directors after sifting through various reviews into England's World Cup campaign. It will not have to decide on the future of Martin Johnson or Brian Smith because the team manager and the attack coach have resigned. The futures of the other coaches – John Wells, Mike Ford, Graham Rowntree – will be decided and the remit of the board was to come up with the best candidate to take charge of England for the next four years.

"Given that the start of the Six Nations is little more than two months away, there is little time to appoint a head coach/manager and a full coaching team. A caretaker administration is likely, but the board will then have to decide how to go about making a full-time appointment. It is 14 years since the RFU appointed a coach after an interview process, but with a new chief executive due to be appointed next month, that is the probable outcome. The caveat is that with the RFU, anything can happen."

Former England international Austin Healey, in his column for the Daily Mirror, reflects on his emotions when England were dumped out of the World Cup in 1999.

"Nobody needs to tell me emotions run high when you play for England and are dumped out of the World Cup in the quarter-finals.

I know, I experienced it in 1999. Twelve years on I still remember the way I felt at that moment my dream died.

And I'll tell you something, it wasn't 'There's £35,000 just gone down the toilet'. I sat on a bench on my own for a good 20 minutes and cried. "

Rob Kitson, of the Guardian, believes time is running out for Rob Andrew.

"Rob Andrew is a clever political animal with a remarkably thick skin. Sometimes it can be a conflicting marriage. The average rhino would have fetched its coat long ago and left the Rugby Football Union's offices in search of a quieter watering hole. But Andrew is still in situ as the RFU's elite rugby director, a pillar of rectitude amid crumbling ruins. Or, at least, that is how he would like people to regard him.

Others feel differently. Very differently. "For my money, I don't see what he has done in five years," said Austin Healey, now a sharp-eyed analyst for ESPN. "I have got no idea what he has done. And for him to say: 'Oh look at the Under-20s, they have gone on to great things in the World Cup' – that has got sod all to do with it …that is down to the clubs who have handled their players well. The RFU can't come out of this in its current state." Others are even ruder. "The only time he [Andrew] shows any balls is when he's fighting for his own position," muttered another disgruntled former international."

The Daily Mail speaks to Dick Best, Martin Corry, Jeff Probyn, Geoff Cooke and Steve Hansen over how the RFU can recover.

"Dick Best (Ex-England coach): "It’s a job for one of the two knights in the game — either Sir Clive Woodward or Sir Ian (McGeechan) of Bath. It’s such a mess that there’s no point in giving it to a more inexperienced guy in the likes of Jim Mallinder or Conor O’Shea. ‘I thought when Martin Johnson resigned we might be able to draw a line in the sand but it goes on and on and could be damaging for the sport."

The Independent's James Lawton picks through the carcass of rugby.

"You knew it was bad, very bad indeed. You could see it in the leaden performance and mindless indiscipline on the field and the drunken, lemming self-destruction off it, but you couldn't quite know the extent of the failure, the inadequacy of the people involved, until the leaking this week of three official reports into England's World Cup disaster.

Now the extent of the problem is spelled out in almost every line of recrimination, every pathetic revelation not so much of a dark and mirthless parody of a group of professional international sportsmen and their coaches but a broken, cheap-jack culture."

A Daily Mail Editorial calls on Rob Andrew to resign from his post at the RFU.

"Rob Andrew admits English rugby is ‘at rock bottom’. He accepts the World Cup performance was a shambles and on Thursday apologised for the performance and behaviour of England’s players and coaching staff.

As director of elite rugby, Andrew ‘absolutely accepts responsibility for what is going on’. Martin Johnson, the England coach and an iconic figure who captained England to World Cup glory, knew what responsibility meant — he accepted his role in the shambles and resigned."

Brian Moore, in his column for the Daily Telegraph, puts the knife into the RFU over the recent scandal to hit the organisation.

"The fact that three confidential reports have been leaked is proof that vested interests in the administration are still intent on furthering their own ends, whatever the consequences for English rugby in general.

What is apparent from the reports by the Rugby Players’ Association, the Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby is that there was, at best, a lack of understanding and, at worst, complete confusion over what England were trying to do from the time they met before the Rugby World Cup until their exit against France in the quarter-final, worrying signs that if not addressed will irrevocably alter the nature of professional rugby to the detriment of everyone involved.

The players largely absolve Martin Johnson of blame, saying that he was let down by his coaches who, apart from Graham Rowntree, are widely criticised."

Mike Ford was one of the coaches singled out for criticism as a result of the leaked reports © Getty Images

England defence coach Mike Ford, talking to the Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary, defends his role in the World Cup.

"Defence coach Mike Ford revealed his hurt on Wednesday night at the image portrayed of English rugby and defended his methods, insisting that he had the backing of the players despite the negative comments about his role in leaked documents.

“Yes, I’m gutted, deflated, dispirited by all this and there is a sense that it’s never-ending,” said Ford. “But it’s very selective.

"Of course, we’re not happy at the way the World Cup turned out but if I felt my position was untenable, or that I’d lost the dressing room, I’d walk away. But I don’t. I don’t blame the players for these comments being out there. They gave them in good faith.

"But I don’t think that they represent the proper view of things. It’s not a balanced picture at all. The worst bits have been cherry-picked."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy divulges how much the England players are paid per match.

"The levels of greed reportedly at the heart of English rugby’s meltdown can be laid bare after Sportsmail obtained details of the RFU’s player payments structure.

England’s World Cup flops were each paid £41,666 for their five-game campaign in New Zealand — and that was after receiving £8,545 per man per match during the three-Test warm-up programme.

The leaked Rugby Players’ Association report revealed that players and RFU officials had accused certain members of England’s 30-man squad of being more interested in ‘getting cash and caps than about getting better on the pitch’."

Martin Samuel, writing for the Daily Mail, wades in on the leaked reports debate.

"Across 101 pages, it is all there. The corrupting influence of money, the divide between old and new, duff executives, poorly conceived plans, clashes of culture and ego; the parlous state of English rugby laid bare.

The Rugby Football Union wanted a review, and now they have one. Even Frank Rich, the New York Times theatre critic known as the Butcher of Broadway, never penned anything quite as savage as this.

The three reports now being studied by the Professional Game Board tell a sorry tale of a sport on the point of implosion. The players, greedy, unprofessional and conflicted; the coaches, inadequate, lazy and outdated; the management, absent, absent, absent."

The Independent's Chris Hewett look over the leaked reports and provides his take on the matter.

"The Rugby Football Union, in the formidable shape of its chief disciplinary officer Judge Jeff Blackett, last night launched an access-all-areas inquiry into the leaking of three confidential reviews into England's ill-starred World Cup campaign in New Zealand – reports that painted a black picture of confusion, indiscipline and division amongst the coaching staff, the players and pretty much everyone else involved. But even if the governing body identifies the individual responsible, who will be in very serious trouble if unmasked, they will be hard pressed to find any salvation.

English rugby is lying in the gutter and looking anywhere but at the stars, especially now that the Professional Game Board – the body set up to bring the RFU, the Premiership clubs and the players' union together – has proved itself unable to keep its secrets. Some Twickenham insiders suggested that the leak was a deliberate attempt to damage the board's credibility and undermine its growing influence."

The Guardian's Rob Kitson points the finger of blame at the RFU.

"If England supporters found it difficult to stomach the pile of World Cup horror stories on their breakfast tables, imagine how certain players and coaches felt. One or two chose to avoid the newsagents, having already heard enough via radio and social media outlets to suspect it might not be a wise move. From Lewis Moody downwards, however, there was a collective sense of hurt and anger. This was not what the squad bargained for when they agreed to supply confidential details of exactly what happened in New Zealand.

It has left a bitter taste which will linger for some time. As one member of the management put it to me bluntly: "The big question is: 'Why was it leaked now?'" The same allegation constantly resurfaced among other individuals canvassed: they all viewed the leak as a calculated attempt to discredit as many people as possible at Twickenham, thus paving the way for a white knight – or, to give him his full name, Sir Clive Woodward – to return at the expense of Rob Andrew. The damage to the public image of a few stray pawns was clearly not seen as a priority."

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary gives his view on what the RFU need to do in light of the damning reports.

"There is no way that Rob Andrew should survive this latest debacle, no way he should be allowed to slide into the shadows once again as if in denial of these revelations showing an England camp in disarray and riven with discord.

Andrew has sidestepped his way through many a crisis before now, showing niftier footwork than he was ever renowned for in his playing days, but this time the buck has to stop with him.

There are many items on the charge sheet, the most telling of which is penned in his own hand. His report refers to the fact that in the build-up to the World Cup “a small but very influential group of players were not picked up on their behaviour."

Martin Johnson has been criticised in the latest leaked reports © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary looks at how the RFU can recover from the revelations leaked to the press.

"What a sorry state of affairs. What a shoddy, slipshod and increasingly divided set-up. What a tainted game, at odds with itself, on and off the field. No-one comes out of it untarnished.

Not Martin Johnson, nor his coaching staff (with the notable exception of scrum coach, Graham Rowntree), nor the RFU back-up, nor Rob Andrew, nor the players themselves. It's a wonder England got as far as they did. Thanks goodness Romania put out a weakened team.

Even the recently-formulated guardians of the game, the Professional Game Board, have had their credibility compromised by mass disclosure of what were intended to be confidential documents.

The PGB stood for a modern ways, slicker, more streamlined and less porous than that lot at the union, accepting, of course, that the RFU is part of the PGB. Instead, it's the same old song.

No wonder Johnson walked away from it all. He went before he surely would have been pushed or obliged to go. The revelations about England's chaotic, rancorous World Cup camp would only have made Johnson's position untenable."

The Guardian's Rob Kitson looks at a "culture of avarice, division and confusion in the national team set-up"

"The reputation of English rugby has already received a hammering but the leaking of the confidential reports into the squad's recent Rugby World Cup debacle is as heavy a blow as any. Any pretence that England were unfortunate victims of circumstance in New Zealand has been blown out of the water and replaced by a litany of examples of avarice and muddle-headed thinking.

Some of the details contained within the documents published by the Times will cause apoplexy among those supporters who paid good money to follow the squad. To hear players openly criticising their team-mates for being money-obsessed and detailing the full extent of the divisions within the squad makes it obvious why Martin Johnson felt the need to resign last week. It may even be that the latest revelations will make it considerably harder for the RFU to find a coach prepared to dip his toes into such toxic waters."

The Daily Mail provides their take on the leaked reports from England's World Cup.

"England's Rugby World Cup shambles has been brutally laid bare after confidential reports into events in New Zealand were leaked.

Both players and Rugby Football Union officials accused certain members of England's 30-man squad of being more interested in 'getting cash and caps than about getting better on the pitch' while the failings of Martin Johnson's management style were exposed."

The Daily Telegraph picks over the quotes from the leaked reports.

"Lewis Moody was inadequate, Martin Johnson lacked "b*****", the coaches were laughably inept, and the players were greedy and immature. These are the explosive revelations revealed by a leaked report into England's shambolic Rugby World Cup.

England's calamity in New Zealand was caused by "players more interested in cash and caps" and coaches who were a laughing stock. No one - apart from scrum coach Graham Rowntree - comes out of the accounts with any credit.

Three official and confidential reports, leaked to The Times, were compiled by the RFU under the guidance of Rob Andrew."

Despite financial success, 2011 will be remembered for the World Cup failure © Getty Images

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs provides his take on the RFU's recent financial review and their attempt to paper over the cracks in the organisation

"The Rugby Football Union has exposed itself to further ridicule after chairman Paul Murphy wrote in the governing body’s annual report published on Monday that "it is clear that the union and its staff have been operating at the top of their game."

Murphy remarkably chose to gloss over the political turmoil and succession of bloody coups that resulted in the sacking of John Steele as chief executive and forced Martyn Thomas to resign first as chairman and then earlier this month as acting chief executive officer under the threat of a special general meeting.

Pressure from sports minister Hugh Robertson has also forced the RFU to carry out an independent review of its corporate governance in response to criticisms contained in the Blackett report into Steele’s sacking. But Murphy insisted that RFU staff “have not been distracted by recent challenges” and that “the record achievements of the RFU and its staff in the past year deserve much praise”.

The Daily Telegraph's Brian Moore knew Jim Mallinder's family when I was at school and the qualities of the favourite for the England coaching job were clear even then.

"Ironically, the traits that made Mallinder a solid, but unspectacular, player are those most important for a coach. The ability to analyse and organise with the necessary detachment is at the root of his success as a coach at club and Under-21 and second team international level.

"While others have done the shouting and cajoling, Mallinder has kept the strategic imperatives in focus. At times with Johnson it appeared that he really wanted to be out on the pitch rather than directing from the stand.

"What Mallinder could achieve as head coach depends on what structure is in place but his time alongside Brian Ashton at the Rugby Football Union means he has worked with the most creative modern coach in England. He has an understanding of the organisation and has proved he can work within it."

Former Australia coach Eddie Jones stakes his claim for England job and praises former foe Clive Woodward in an interview with the Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary.

"Jones says he believes there is enough coaching talent in England to enable him to pick an English forwards and backs coach but says it is vital that the squad undergoes a rebuilding process immediately to ensure they emerge as serious contenders in four years’ time.

“The first thing I would do if I was appointed is settle on a style that suits the strength of the players. England’s success has always been based on a strong set-piece. At the World Cup they had a strong scrum and line-out but you have got to be able to use that to the best effect.

“The second thing is getting the selection right. England need the right players to utilise their set-piece dominance and also the right characters to play the game for you. You have got to have some experience in your side. I would start bringing in the exciting young talent that currently exists in England straight away."

Whoever takes over as England manager needs to take account of the reduced thinking time available in international rugby, Eddie Butler writes in The Observer.

"[Rob] Andrew's five pillars of wisdom: he is far too bright and astute to allow anything to fall on him, but perhaps he will have to let go of one of them. Having washed his hands of any responsibility for the goings-on – bit of sex, bit of scandal, usual stuff – on the 2008 England tour to New Zealand, he is now scrubbing them to rid himself of any fallout from the World Cup of 2011. He was only the manager in 2008 and only the boss in 2011. Accountability and Andrew share little but a first letter.

"Perhaps he should concentrate on the four things of his five that he does with brio and leave England to others. Such a withdrawal would perhaps persuade Nick Mallett to have a change of heart and throw his cap into the ring. He has worked in South Africa and Italy and knows more about volatile environments than most.

"Is experience at international level important? The names of Sir Clive Woodward, Eddie Jones and Jake White are dropped as naturally as leaves fall in autumn but the next England coach perhaps needs to be driven as much by hunger as knowledge."

The RFU got it all wrong in their past two appointments – they cannot make the same mistake again, according to Dean Ryan in The Observer.

"The fundamental thing is that if the Rugby Football Union are to get the right person they must get the appointment process correct, which they clearly failed to do with Martin Johnson. They must demand three qualities of the new man: credibility, leadership and technical coaching.

"Without credibility you cannot move on to the other two requirements because no one will listen to you. Johnson had buckets of credibility from his status as a player, but it needs to come from the learning process that you can only get from previous experience of management. The leadership aspect of the job is about defining vision and direction and creating an environment to support that. The technical coaching side of things obviously depends on a sound knowledge of the game and the ability to educate and communicate.

"Very few people combine these three qualities and so you need a team that covers their areas of weakness. Every top-end manager or director of rugby is supplemented by people who excel at things he's not good at – as with Clive Woodward's appointment of Andy Robinson. The fact Johnson did not get the right team around him is incredible.

"How could anyone who made the appointment not have seen that, although he was strong on credibility, Johnson had no experience in the other two areas? But we don't know who makes the appointment and there is no obvious accountability for it. Is it Rob Andrew's responsibility to write the job description and find the right man? If it is, he's done it twice and got it wrong twice."

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy reveals details of the Rugby Football Union's Code of Conduct.

"Schedule 8 - Code of Conduct for players

The highest standards are expected in appearance, conduct and behaviour.

The player will: b) Set a positive example for others... in all aspects of being a professional rugby player such as physical appearance and demeanour.

e) Not wear branding/logos, other than those of RFU sponsors.

y) Not discuss, publish or disclose at any time any information about any aspect of playing for England that would cause offence to any member of the RFU, England squad or management.

z) Avoid compromising situations which may become public and thus bring discredit on themselves, the team and the game:

Players are prohibited from bringing unknown guests back to team hotels (without management approval).

Guidance will be given on post match entertainment by the England Team Manager for each match.

Advice from the medical team regarding consumption of alcohol must be adhered to.

Schedule 9 - Teamship rules

1. No bad language will be tolerated at any time other than within private meetings or training sessions.

7. If you are not selected you are to congratulate the player selected in your position immediately, and face to face.

9. You will not discuss, write or disclose at any time any information about any aspect of playing for England that would cause offence to any team-mate, coaches or management. What happens within the England camp stays within the England camp and remains confidential indefinitely.

10. Support each other in the media. Any contentious issues to be dealt with face-to-face and in private - not via the press."

The Independent's Chris Hewett believes the successor to Martin Johnson must not worry about Six Nations results as much as blooding kids for next World Cup.

"Yet there is a positive side to all this. The new manager-cum-coach will, assuming the Rugby Football Union identifies its preferred candidate sooner rather than later and does not mess up the contractual negotiations to such an extent that everyone ends up in front of Mr Justice Cocklecarrot at the High Court, have virtually an entire World Cup cycle in which to make some sense of this England farrago: to restore some dignity and authority to the national set-up – instil some discipline, develop something resembling a professional culture and, dare we say it, get the team playing some rugby worth watching.

"Where to start? By taking an axe to the squad selected for duty at the World Cup and hacking off at least a third of it. Five senior members of that party are already players of the past: the captain Lewis Moody has retired from international rugby; Mike Tindall is history because he behaved like a fool in a very public place; Jonny Wilkinson, Simon Shaw and Tom Palmer are off-limits because they are playing their club rugby in France and are therefore ineligible under new selection rules. A sixth man, James Haskell, is also abroad and will not feature in the Six Nations, but as he has a future ahead of him rather than behind him, he is likely to return to the elite group when he resurfaces at Wasps next summer.

"We can, and certainly should, add to this list at least half a dozen players – Mark Cueto and Shontayne Hape, Andrew Sheridan and Steve Thompson, Louis Deacon and Nick Easter – who have no realistic prospect of making it to 2015. Cueto and Easter have something to offer England over the next 12 months, as would Sheridan if he could only keep himself fit, but what in God's name is the point? As Johnson himself said in bidding his farewells on Wednesday, modern international rugby is about the World Cup and nothing but the World Cup, save a short and breathless spell of Lions business between tournaments."

Brian Ashton, the former England head coach, claims the “complete mess” at the RFU is likely to have played a key role in both Martin Johnson’s decision to resign as England manager and Nick Mallett’s decision to rule himself out of contention to be his successor. The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs reports.

"Ashton, whose sacking in 2008 paved the way for Johnson’s appointment, has also questioned the commitment of some of the England players, claiming they appeared to be were more interested in the financial reward than giving their all for their country.

“There seems to be a sea change in the players’ approach, and that they are more concerned about the financial rewards and commercial opportunities,” Ashton said.

“It used to be all about getting to wear the white shirt with the red rose and that was enough. I accept that things change — otherwise it would still be an amateur game — but I just wonder now whether that is their main focus.”

"Johnson resigned on Wednesday following England’s disappointing World Cup campaign, which was marred by off-field controversies and culminated in a quarter-final defeat by France.

"Ashton, who controversially lost his job despite taking England to the World Cup final in 2007, claimed Mallett would have been the perfect candidate to replace Johnson but claimed the turmoil at Twickenham had put off the former South Africa and Italy coach."

According to the Guardian's Rob Kitson, England must get the decision regarding a new coach right before 2003 is a faded memory.

"So no pressure then. English rugby can talk forever about structures and reviews and pathways but ultimately it has to put its faith in one individual as the next head coach of its national team. That the 2015 World Cup is being staged in England effectively trebles the stakes. Get this pivotal decision wrong and the country will have blown its best chance in decades of repeating the increasingly dog-eared triumph of 2003.

"Much depends, of course, on what the Rugby Football Union is aiming to achieve. If it wishes to repeat the cycle of failure in which it is stuck, it need only reject the advice of the Professional Game Board and other notable voices and keep muddling on. Let us assume, though, that recent events really have concentrated minds and also that the new man will have total responsibility for team affairs and will report directly to the RFU's incoming chief executive. If there is to be a performance director, he should work in conjunction with the coaching staff, not as their de facto boss.

"For those who doubt whether that is practicable, step forward Andy Flower. The transformation in English cricket since he took the job cannot be overstated. If you have the right man setting the right tone, a man who can talk to professional players, schoolkids and the media with equal good sense and honesty, an awful lot of other things fall into place."

Jim Mallinder is the early England-born favourite to succeed Martin Johnson © Getty Images

Brendan Venter, in his column for the Telegraph, backs Jim Mallinder as the right man to succeed Martin Johnson.

"Jim Mallinder is the right man for the England job because he is the only one of the candidates who is a classic head coach prepared to get his hands dirty and build a team from scratch.

He did this at Northampton when he took the club from the first division to the Heineken Cup final in less than four years, and I believe he can make England one of the most difficult teams to beat in Test rugby.

Australia have been second only to New Zealand over the past two years because Robbie Deans is an old-fashioned coach like Mallinder. He is there on the training paddock coaching the sessions and calling the shots.

Deans won numerous Super Rugby titles with the Crusaders as a pure head coach and the Australian Rugby Union were very smart to get this kind of leader locked into a long contract.

With a manager, and not a coach, at the helm, England have lacked direction and have gone into big matches without a defined style of play. A team with Mallinder at the heart of the tactics and training will leave observers in no doubt about how they play. England will be a direct, hard and physical side that will ask serious questions of any team they play.”

Chris Hewett, appearing in the New Zealand Herald, gives his reasons for why Martin Johnson was the wrong man.

"It was born under a bad sign - the stars were out of alignment from the start, thanks to the despicable, hole-in-the-corner way the Twickenham hierarchy behaved in ending Brian Ashton's tenure as the head coach of the England rugby team -and it ended in a black hole of the governing body's own making.

Martin Johnson, betrayed by some of his best-known players and befuddled by the demands of running a major international sporting concern without a scintilla of relevant experience on which to draw, knew there was only one sensible decision to make, and he made it yesterday. If only his decision-making had always been so clear-minded, so decisive, so right."

The Daily Telegraph's Gavin Mairs claims Wales are looking at England scrum coach Graham Rowntree

"Wales believed to be weighing up a move to lure England assistant coach Graham Rowntree to bolster Warren Gatland's backroom team ahead of the 2012 Six Nations tournament.

Gatland, who worked with the former England prop as part of the British and Irish Lions coaching team in South Africa in 2009, is believed to be keen on appointing Rowntree as his forwards coach, with incumbent Robin McBryde expected to part company with the Welsh Rugby Union in the next few weeks.

It is understood that Rowntree, one of the few England coaches to emerge from England’s dreadful Rugby World Cup campaign with an enhanced reputation, may also be targeted by Scotland head coach and former England coach Andy Robinson."

Richard Williams, of the Guardian, looks at back at happier times for Martin Johnson.

"Rewind the past three and a half years, then erase the tape. Remember Martin Johnson the way he deserves to be remembered, as the dark-browed, monosyllabic, iron-clad lock who led England to the finest hour in their rugby history and then retired to watch his small daughter grow up. Not as the man who sat down at Twickenham to announce his departure from a job he should never have been offered in the first place.

There are people you don't mind watching take a bit of pain, usually as a payback for getting above themselves, but Johnson is not one of them. No one reaches the heights he scaled as a player without acquiring a certain confidence in their own abilities, yet neither as captain of England nor as team manager did he display anything you could reasonably describe as arrogance. Impatience with those he considered fools or timewasters, now that was another thing."

Paul Rees, of the Guardian, looks at Martin Johnson's troubled reign.

"Hugo Porta, the former Argentina outside-half, lamented earlier this month that rugby union had become a game of muscle rather than skill. His remarks went almost unnoticed here, even though he made them in London, a symptom perhaps of why Martin Johnson this week decided that he had had enough of being England's team manager.

Johnson had spent most of his 40 months in charge of England fending off questions which were not concerned about the playing of rugby (most of those which were game-related tended to be about when he was going to shake up his coaching team or dump Shontayne Hape from his midfield). Even when England were playing well, against Australia last November and at the start of this year's Six Nations, he kept being asked about Chris Ashton's swallow dive and whether the wing would be dropped for disobeying an instruction to touch down in a more conventional way."

The Daily Telegraph's Ian Chadband looks at Martin Johnson's faded aura.

"As if boarding one of those Space Mountain roller-coasters which you just know with some trepidation will plunge you into darkness at some point, we knew Martin Johnson’s journey as England’s rugby manager would dip us wildly into the unknown.

It was almost an act of faith, really. There was a widespread, almost touching, conviction from many disciples that at the end of the ride, everything would turn out just dandy because of who was at the helm. People believed simply because the driver was Johnno. Yes, good old steely, invincible Johnno.

So when in that first November of his reign, his England succumbed to three successive defeats to the Tri-Nations giants by the combined total of 102 points to 26, perhaps England’s most miserable autumn series of all, no panic. Not with Captain Marvel in charge; a man to be trusted, a man to be followed. Never mind the lack of L plates; just feel the force of will."

Martin Samuel, in his column for the Daily Mail, gives his take on Martin Johnson's resignation.

"The famous beetle brow furrowed a final time as Martin Johnson discharged his last patriotic duty for England. Resignation in the air, resignation on the page, resignation in his eyes.

He was given the opportunity to blame the boss sitting by his side, to blame his players, to spread the taint of failure across his staff. He chose instead to stand alone.

'You put someone in charge of it,' he said, 'they're in charge of it.' And in that brief but all too typical assessment - an upmarket version of his self-mocking mantra, 'It is what it is' - Johnson accepted more responsibility for England's wretched World Cup than any of those around him."

Iain Balshaw was best man at Mike Tindall's wedding © Getty Images

The Telegraph's Gavin Mairs chats to Iain Balshaw - the best man at Mike Tindall's wedding - about how the England centre is coping following the recent high-profile events.

"Iain Balshaw, who was best man at the July wedding of Mike Tindall to the Queen’s granddaughter, Zara Phillips, has no doubts that his former Bath and Gloucester team-mate will come through the crisis that has seen him stripped of his England place, fined £25,000 and publicly humiliated.

“He showed in Sunday’s Heineken Cup performance against Toulouse that he has the ability to bounce back and I’m sure that’s exactly what he will do,” said Balshaw, in European action himself last weekend for Biarritz against the Ospreys.

“Considering what’s happened to him over the last five or six weeks, it was a fantastic display. He’s a bit frustrated about everything that has gone on. I don’t know the full extent of the story but he knows that he’s probably had one too many. He’s in good spirits, though.”

Shaun Edwards, in his column for the Guardian, reflects on his new contract with the WRU and claims England never made contact regarding a job at the RFU.

"The Ts have been crossed and the Is dotted, so for the next four years, until at least the 2015 World Cup in England, I'll be with Wales. Adds a bit of spice to life doesn't it, but there are bound to be those who say: "Why not England?" Well, the simple answer is that they didn't ask.

Some time, a bit further down the line, there may come a time when I get to wear the red rose. It is something I would enjoy because, after all, I'm English and representing your country is what you aspire to. However, at the moment I don't want to talk about England.

I did get a few other calls once it became known that I was a free agent but since the day I left their employ, Wales and the WRU chief executive, Roger Lewis, have been perfectly professional about getting me back on board. Even before we left New Zealand and the World Cup we had spoken and when the Wasps situation became apparent that was taken into consideration as well."

Gavin Maris, writing for the Telegraph, claims Wales are eyeing up a move for England's scrum coach Graham Rowntree.

"Wales believed to be weighing up a move to lure England assistant coach Graham Rowntree to bolster Warren Gatland's backroom team ahead of the 2012 Six Nations tournament.

Gatland, who worked with the former England prop as part of the British and Irish Lions coaching team in South Africa in 2009, is believed to be keen on appointing Rowntree as his forwards coach, with incumbent Robin McBryde expected to part company with the Welsh Rugby Union in the next few weeks.

It is understood that Rowntree, one of the few England coaches to emerge from England’s dreadful Rugby World Cup campaign with an enhanced reputation, may also be targeted by Scotland head coach and former England coach Andy Robinson."

Mike Tindall was a man in demand during the World Cup © Getty Images

The Daily Mail's Chris Foy reveals that the RFU paid for a free bar on the night the England players went on their infamous trip to the 'Altitude Bar' in Queenstown.

"The drunken night out that cost Mike Tindall his England career was partly paid for by the Rugby Football Union.

Former skipper Tindall is still awaiting a hearing date for his appeal against the £25,000 RFU fine imposed for his behaviour during England’s ill-fated World Cup campaign.

Meanwhile, Sportsmail can reveal the union encouraged the start of the infamous ‘dwarfgate’ night out and even arranged to pay for players’ drinks."

Mick Cleary, of the Daily Telegraph, reflects on Mike Tindall's huge fine.

"It would appear that there is no way back for Mike Tindall. The sanction handed down on Friday by the Rugby Football Union was brutal.

The England centre was smacked as hard as he has ever been, stripped not only of his shirt but of his reputation and dignity. The image of Tindall as an unreconstructed Rugby World Cup tour-wrecker, letting down his mates and manager, will not be easily repaired.

Yet as he surveys the bleak landscape, thinking that he will forever be branded as the man who besmirched England’s campaign in New Zealand, Tindall might care to think back to another 2003 World Cup hero and wonder how it is that Lawrence Dallaglio is still toasted the length and breadth of the land. And rightly so."

Last week Martin Johnson was interviewed by Rob Andrew over England's World Cup debacle © Getty Images

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Ian Stafford claims that Martin Johnson is set to walk away from his role as England manager following a revelatory review process.

Martin Johnson's future will be decided within days after further damaging details in the Mike Tindall affair were revealed to the England team manager during a bruising Twickenham inquiry into the World Cup debacle.

"Johnson, 41, is distraught after finding himself in the line of fire during last week’s two-day management review headed by the RFU’s professional rugby director, Rob Andrew. The manager’s coaching team, some of whom are certain to be axed following England’s disappointing World Cup, are trying to persuade him to
stay on.

"But Johnson, told at the review that England’s lucrative sponsorships deals have been thrown into jeopardy by the bad publicity over the World Cup, now believes his position has become untenable and he may decide to resign within the next few days."

In the Sunday Telegraph, Paul Ackford hits out at his former England team-mate Rob Andrew's vindictive and hypocritical treatment of Mike Tindall following the centre's fine and expulsion from the England squad.

"Mike Tindall should never play for England again because, at 33, his best days are behind him, and he still can’t pass a rugby ball properly.

"His two convictions for drink-driving, coupled with his behaviour in Queenstown when he claimed not to remember going to a second bar, would suggest that his relationship with alcohol is a troubled one. But to slap a £25,000 fine on him for going off the rails on a sanctioned night out during England’s World Cup campaign is unnecessarily vindictive.

"Rob Andrew was the man behind the punishment, the same Rob Andrew who, three years ago, sat in a Christchurch hotel, and refused to take any responsibility for a tour to New Zealand which he was managing while Martin Johnson stayed at home to attend his pregnant wife, and where the behaviour of England’s players resulted in a police inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct.

"I remember the occasion well. As Mike Ford and John Wells, the two coaches either side of Andrew, shifted in their seats in embarrassment, Andrew was asked twice if he was in any way accountable for the actions of his players, on or off the pitch. Nothing. No apology. No explanation. Nothing.

Mike Tindall was at the centre of a high profile incident while on tour in New Zealand © Getty Images

Former England scrum-half Matt Dawson hits out at the RFU for their handling of the Mike Tindall affair in his column for the Daily Mail.

"The £25,000 fine for Mike Tindall is draconian and another example of the crazy decision-making going on at the Rugby Football Union.

"Having spent 10 days in New Zealand following the Rugby World Cup, I know full well that our international rivals are laughing at what is going on in English rugby.

"Senior figures around the world cannot believe how England have spontaneously combusted over the past few months.

"And the fine for Mike continues that trend of the past few months. Yes, something had to be done following the trip to New Zealand, but whatever his exploits were on his night out in a tourist town like Queenstown, does it qualify for a £25,000 fine?"

Paul Rees, writing for the Guardian, argues that Martin Johnson has lost control of the England team.

"One of the concerns some on the Rugby Football Union had about putting Martin Johnson in charge of England three years ago was not so much his lack of management and coaching experience but that he would be the boss of players who had been his colleagues on the field, head boy turned headmaster.

If his three-year tenure ends next month, two of the men who were with him in Sydney when the World Cup was won in 2003 will have helped undermine him. Johnson kept faith with the player whose drop-goal won the World Cup eight years ago, Jonny Wilkinson, even though the outside-half was a more uncomfortable fit in the side than his rival, Toby Flood, and even when his goal-kicking form deserted him. Mike Tindall's failure to apologise immediately after being caught in a clinch with a woman on a boozy night out following the opening match against Argentina meant that an issue which should have been dealt with festered."

Peter Jackson, writing for the Daily Mail, provides his take on the latest high-profile decision at the RFU.

"The disgraceful end of Mike Tindall’s distinguished England career amounts to a shamefully tacit admission of the RFU’s failure to control their own players.

"The severity of their former captain’s punishment for his nightclub antics leaves an awkward question hanging over the sorry, sleazy affair.

"Why, oh why did the England management not take pre-emptive action?"

In his column for The Sun, Will Carling expresses his misgivings over the fine handed to Mike Tindall.

"To me this all smacks of a witch-hunt and I think it very unfair that Mike Tindall has been made a scapegoat for all of England's off-field problems. Don't get me wrong. The behaviour of the England players left a lot to be desired.

And when you have Jonny Wilkinson feeling the need to speak to the players during the tournament, then you know you have a serious problem.

It's a professional game now and the players must know they went too far.

But what I cannot understand is why Tindall has been singled out as the scapegoat."

Former England captain Lewis Moody has expressed further regret about his side's troubled Rugby World Cup campaign © Getty Images

England's 2011 World Cup captain Lewis Moody will miss Test rugby but still has plenty on his mind after such a limp finale. The Guardian's Rob Kitson reports.

"So what did happen when England stumbled into the "Mad Midget Weekender", which spawned a million headlines? Moody has already expressed regret that others did not call it a night as relatively early as he did. "If I had stayed out I'd have been able to put an arm round them and take them back. That would be my biggest regret. But when I left the bar there were only a couple of guys in there. The other fellas weren't out. As much as I'd like to know everyone's movements, it's not possible."

"Nor, unlike some, does Moody seek to blame the media as agents provocateurs. "Absolutely it's the players' fault. The media have a job to do … as players you have to hold your hands up and take responsibility for your actions, simple as that. We spoke about that at length and we spoke about the media, about being in New Zealand and the rugby cauldron that it is. I think that's what is even more disappointing: that we allowed it to happen. It did taint the rugby. Whether we'd have gone beyond the quarter-final or not, it certainly tainted the experience." Meeting the French players in the lift as he checked out of his hotel the morning after England's quarter-final defeat scarcely helped."

Nick Mallett could be in line for a job with the RFU © Getty Images

The Guardian's Rob Kitson provides his take on what the RFU should do next as they try and bring rugby's biggest prize back to England's shores in 2015.

"The faint whirring sound you can hear is the sound of mental cogs turning across English rugby. Not before time, many would say. History may even classify the national team's head-clutching World Cup campaign as a blessing in disguise. Surely we now have a consensus: things cannot go on like this. The Rugby Football Union is hosting the 2015 World Cup, the best opportunity for a generation or two to promote the game in these parts. Getting it wrong is not an option.

So what should the RFU do next? While we await the outcomes of umpteen reviews – strangely, no one has rung me yet – here are a few immediate suggestions. Picking through the entrails of 2011 is all well and good but the time has come for some fresh thinking ..."

Luke Benedict, of the Daily Mail, looks at Jonny Wilkinson's latest revelations from his new autobiography.

"Jonny Wilkinson has revealed that his infamous fear of failure and obsession with perfection made him so depressed he harmed himself.

The England fly-half was so distressed by a seemingly endless succession of injuries that he was driven to biting his own hand, screaming under water, sleep-deprivation and ripping up his clothes.

The 32-year-old documents his decline into dark obsession in his new autobiography, Jonny.

It began in the summer of 2002 when he agreed with Clive Woodward, then the England coach, to miss the tour to Argentina and rest after five years of summer touring."

Jonny Wilkinson, in the Daily Telegraph, speaks out about England's disastrous World Cup campaign.

"Throughout their time in New Zealand England's players courted the wrong sort of headlines, most notably when Mike Tindall led a group of players late night drinking at a club where dwarf throwing formed the centrepiece to the night's entertainment.

Wilkinson, a self confessed obsessive professional, was not part of the group, indeed, he says the last time he went out drinking following an England match was at the end of the previous World Cup.

While unwilling to condemn players for having a well earned drink during a long tour, and conscious that he inhabits in another extreme that is not to be prescribed to everyone, Wilkinson believes the consequences were inevitable."

Rob Wildman, of the Daily Mail, suggests that under fire Gloucester centre Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu may hang up his boots.

"Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu may quit rugby if he receives a six-month ban for his Twitter rant against Saracens' Owen Farrell.

The Gloucester centre, 31, fears the 24-19 win at Exeter might be his last match if a disciplinary hearing imposes a six-month suspended sentence from the World Cup for abusing Welsh referee Nigel Owens.

His contract is up next May and he said: 'If I get the ban it would only be fair that the remainder of my contract gets terminated. It would be disappointing but that's life.

'That might be it for me.'"

Lewis Moody partied hard during the 1998/9 Tour of the southern hemisphere © Getty Images

"I had been in the bar after the match for quite a while when some of the England players hobbled in after their 64-22 defeat.

"Can you imagine what they thought when they saw the sight ahead of them?

"There was a stage in the bar and I was prancing around on it in the throes of performing the Full Monty in front of an audience baying for flesh.

"As each item was removed - my England tie, my England shirt and so on - I'd throw it into the crowd until I was left standing in just my boxers.

"England had just been humiliated for the second successive Test match, and an hour or so afterwards, the battered players were subjected to the sight of one of their colleagues making a drunken idiot of himself.

"At the time, I was living the dream. Now I realise I was a moron. Just thinking about it makes me cringe."

In his weekly column in the Independent on Sunday Bath prop David Flatman takes exception to the growing trend of front-row forwards celebrating and boasting at scrum-time.

"You see, as a front-row forward, one is only ever one scrummage away from being physically and publicly humbled; this is why none should ever celebrate too aggressively a powerful surge or favourable decision from a referee. Put simply, gob off too much and all you do is pump motivational fuel into the veins of the man on the other side, making yourself look less of a gentleman all the while.

"No, a dominant scrummage or awarded penalty should be met with as little facial expression as possible, as much through sporting respect as through the desire not to damage your own reputation.

"How many times have we seen a prop win a decision and mark the occasion with a self-promoting shriek, maybe a fist pump and, if things have really gone south, a patronising head-tap for his opposite number? And how many times have we seen the same man have his head inserted into his backside minutes later? I watch this stuff closely, and it happens an awful lot."

Martyn Thomas was forced to step down as chairman of the RFU earlier in the year © Getty Images

Gavin Mairs, writing in the Telegraph, suggests the Rugby Football Union is set for a dramatic overhaul that will see significant changes to the way in which rugby is governed in England.

"It is understood that the sweeping changes are to be proposed when the review of the RFU’s corporate governance structures and practices, undertaken by law firm Slaughter and May, is put to the council meeting at Twickenham on Dec 2.

"The review, which has been headed up by Nigel Boardman, a partner at the firm, and was set up in response to one of the recommendations in the Blackett report, is also expected to recommend that the chairman’s term be limited to four years, replacing the open-ended process with two periods of two years.

"The move is designed to prevent a repeat of the scenario that saw former chairman Martyn Thomas hold the position for six years before he was forced to resign after criticism of his behaviour in the Blackett report into the sacking of John Steele as chief executive."

Wasps' try-scoring sensation Christian Wade talks to Simon Turnbull in the Independent

"Guys like Shane Williams, Jason Robinson and Dave Lemi are all pretty small players and they're big names in rugby," Wade says. "Whatever size or weight you are, I don't think it matters as long as you use your strengths and get the job done."

Dai Young, Wasps' director of rugby, said much the same thing last week when he was asked about his 5ft 8in, 13st 8lb No 11. "Christian is not going to run over many people, is he?" the former Wales prop acknowledged. "But he can beat people, and it doesn't matter how you do that."

Wade insists: "I don't see my size as an issue. I never have. People have brought it up at times. When I was younger I think I didn't get picked sometimes because of it. I just focus on bettering myself, bettering my skills, and it's definitely working for me.

"Everyone's got their own way of getting over the gain-line. For me, it won't be running over players, obviously. That's not my game. For me, it'll be putting some footwork on or stepping or using my speed. Either way, I'm getting over the gain-line, so I don't see any reason to bring up my size or weight."

Former England coach Brian Ashton highlights the importance of the mental side of the game as he contrasts England's flawed World Cup campaign to that of the ultimately victorious All Blacks, in the Independent

"I have resisted commenting on England's efforts – on and off the field – and have no desire to go into detail already covered elsewhere. Suffice to say that they did not endear themselves to many people.

"World Cup captain Lewis Moody has flown the nest and made some interestingly strange comments regarding the behaviour of some of his squad-mates. Many of the remainder of the elite club/international game appear to be in a state of denial, self-preservation and hopeful re-ingratiation – all characteristics of the self-serving ruling classes.

"Post World Cup final interviews with head coach Graham Henry and captain Richie McCaw revealed the mindset the All Blacks have been developing to ensure they were in a position to deal with adversity in a positive manner."

The Guardian's Paul Rees reports on the Rugby Football Union's plans to get their house in order.

"Martin Johnson's future as England's team manager will be decided at the beginning of next month when the Rugby Football Union's council considers a recommendation from the professional game board.

"The decision of the RFU's board of directors on Wednesday to abort the inquiry headed by Fran Cotton into England's World Cup campaign frees the union's operations director, Rob Andrew, a member of the game board, to finish his review of a campaign that became bogged down by various off-field incidents involving players.

"Before reporting to the council on 2 December, Andrew will discuss his findings with his fellow game board members: Ian Metcalfe, the chairman who is on the RFU board; Damien Hopley, the chief executive of the Rugby Players Association; Mark McCafferty, the chief executive of Premiership Rugby; and Jason Leonard, England's most capped international."

Fran Cotton has hit back at claims his independent review into England’s World Cup failure would have been tainted by critical comments he made about the team’s performances and their behaviour off the field.The Daily Telegraph's Mick Cleary reports.

"Former Lions prop Cotton was asked by the Rugby Football Union’s acting chief executive Martyn Thomas to conduct a review of the World Cup campaign and the elite structure in general. But that review was shelved at an RFU board meeting on Wednesday, when Thomas was removed from all roles with the governing body. Rob Andrew, the RFU’s operations director, is understood to have spoken out against Cotton’s proposed review during the board meeting.

"He argued that Cotton should not have given an interview to Telegraph Sport shortly after his appointment, in which he described England centre Mike Tindall’s behaviour at the Rugby World Cup as “indefensible” and declared himself a “massive fan” of former coach Clive Woodward.

"But Cotton is furious at any suggestion his review would not have been objective and fair. “I take exception to anyone thinking I wouldn’t have been independent,” Cotton said. “That would be to question my integrity. I’m known as a fair-minded bloke. I did make some comments before the review came together and those comments are still valid."

Daily Telegraph columnist Brian Moore does not hold back in the wake Martyn Thomas' exit from the Rugby Football Union.

"They probably think they are now safe, having offered up a sacrifice and securing Thomas’s removal as acting CEO from Dec 16 and also from his proposed chairmanship of England 2015, the company that is to oversee the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

"They should not be safe because they only removed him due to pressure from the media and the special general meeting threatened by disaffected clubs.

"Only days ago the RFU president, Willie Wildash, and acting chairman Paul Murphy, were dismissing criticism of the arrangements and urging us all to move forward and concentrate on rugby and the record profits they wanted to highlight.

"Why has it taken these dramatic steps to produce action and how can English rugby settle for the continued management of a board that created this mess and did not rectify it until impelled? Whatever they may say to the contrary, they cannot honestly claim that they would have taken these steps of their own accord."

The future of acting RFU chief executive Martyn Thomas could be decided at Twickenham on Wednesday © Getty Images

The Rugby Football Union’s management board will convene at Twickenham on Wednesday, when the departure of former chairman and current acting chief executive Martyn Thomas will be at the top of the agenda. Sam Peters reports for the Daily Telegraph.

"Thomas’s future remains in sharpest focus, and it appeared on Tuesday night that he has buckled to pressure from 130 clubs, who last week sent a letter to RFU chairman Paul Murphy threatening to call a special general meeting on Thursday if the 67 year-old does not step down immediately.

"RFU insiders told Telegraph Sport, "Martyn’s departure is now inevitable", although he retains some support including from former England captain and co-opted board member Bill Beaumont.

"Last night a group of directors opposed to Thomas, thought to include Metcalfe, Peter Baines, Jonathan Dance and Rob Briers, met at a London location to discuss their stance at today’s meeting.

"If Thomas’s departure date is confirmed today, it would also put Fran Cotton’s World Cup review in serious doubt, with the Professional Game Board, Premier Rugby and a number of England’s management and players opposed to its existence."

England captain Lewis Moody lost control of his troops in New Zealand © Getty Images

Writing in The Guardian, Richard Williams believes that Martin Johnson must have known a captain apt to run dick-of-the-day competitions was unlikely to be a calming influence.

"Cancel the inquiries, all three of them. Tell Rob Andrew to go back to whatever it is he does with the rest of his time, instruct the Professional Game Board to get on with something useful and stuff Fran Cotton's questionnaires into the shredder, because it no longer matters that most of the players concerned refuse to fill them in.

"England's captain has just provided all the answers anyone could require to questions about the performance of the team in New Zealand and, by extension, the governance of the Rugby Football Union, a body surely without a rival for the always hotly contested title of the most dysfunctional in sport.

"On Wednesday the RFU's directors meet at Twickenham to consider the future of their acting chief executive, Martyn Thomas. They have been warned that if they do not remove him a special meeting of their 60‑strong council will be convened to consider a vote of no confidence - hardly a novelty where Twickers is concerned, since the board survived an earlier no‑confidence vote as recently as July, when Thomas stood down as chairman.

"The Rugby World Cup shenanigans have only made matters worse, as the words of Lewis Moody, extracted from his forthcoming autobiography and published at the weekend in the Mail on Sunday, make plain."

Bath prop David Flatman, in the Independent on Sunday, marvels at the staying powers of international players as they return to club action after the World Cup.

"Despite the omnipresence of tangible perspective, I am actually staggered by how little rugby players moan these days. I remember finishing my first season with Saracens in 1999 – yes, your maths are correct and I was 12 years old – and being told we all had six weeks off.

"And although they never, ever seem to moan, I don't know how the current crop of international players do it. As our domestic season drew to a close last May we were given a few weeks to rest, but accompanying that news was a folder full of physical targets to be achieved before presenting ourselves for boot camp."

Simon Turnbull, of the Independent, talks to Geordan Murphy about Leicester's poor form and their plan to get back to the top of the table.

"Geordan Murphy is standing in the clubhouse at Topps Park, the home of Oadby Town Football Club, running his eye over a list of Leicester Tigers' results from the 1997-98 Premiership season in a dog-eared copy of the Playfair Rugby Union Annual. "Er, I think I played in that one, Newcastle at home," the Irish full-back says, still muddied from a morning shift across the road at Oval Park, Leicester's training ground. "I don't really know, to be honest."

It is 15 seasons since the man from Co Kildare was first blooded as a cub full-back for the Tigers. The mercurial Murphy has played so many games for Leicester (274 in all competitions, 177 in the Premiership) that he can perhaps be excused for not being able to pinpoint the first."

The Daily Mail talks to Matt Dawson, Dewi Morris, Geoff Cooke and Jeff Probyn about where England should go next.

"With the 2015 Rugby World Cup being staged in England, the pressure is on the hosts to produce a team capable of emulating Sir Clive Woodward’s 2003 winners rather than Martin Johnson’s undisciplined side of 2011.

But what’s the answer? Sportsmail asks four men who have decades of experience managing or playing for England."

Martin Johnson and Rob Andrew are not the only Rugby Football Union employees to be under pressure © Getty Images

Writing in the Guardian, Rob Kitson examines the in-fighting and chaos within the Rugby Football Union.

"The Rugby Football Union is not exactly unfamiliar with a ruck. In its 140 years of existence there have been endless arguments, most of them dull enough to stupefy even the keenest old fart. Ever since 1895, when 20 clubs from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire broke away and established what is now the Rugby Football League, few sporting bodies have matched it for internal feuding and chicanery, occasionally interrupted by lengthy breaks for lunch."

Former England prop Phil Vickery urges England's younger players to use their calamitous World Cup campaign to make them stronger players in the Daily Mail.

"I’m sure some of the guys will go away from this competition with a bitter pill. It’s a long flight home. I remember being stood on that pitch in 1999 watching Jannie de Beer kick five drop goals and us crashing out of the World Cup. That stayed with me. It was the catalyst for that England team to move on and realise as players where we were in the scale of world rugby - not Six Nations, but world rugby. It was the night we realised we weren’t really that good and had failed to compete on the world stage. Clive Woodward, his coaches and the players turned around and did something about it.

This time England were guilty of knock-ons and poor passes that simply shouldn’t happen at this level. There are issues with this team, they just cannot seem to execute properly on the field. My message to the young England players in that side is remember defeat because it is a horrible feeling. I’ve been through it, I know. Use it as a watershed moment.
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Manu Tuilagi is the latest England player to be embroiled in an off-field incident © Getty Images

"It was what it was, as Martin Johnson would say. And what it was really wasn’t anything like the campaign England hoped for, or should have delivered.

"A mess of distractions away from the rugby pitch, and often just a mess on it, England decamped from New Zealand as the lead balloon of the 2011 tournament. The inquest may last six weeks; much of what went wrong could equally be identified in six minutes.

"The final ray of sunshine was obscured with the news that Manu Tuilagi, England’s real find of the World Cup campaign, ended his tournament with a police warning for jumping off a ferry returning to Auckland’s waterfront, after a day on Waiheke Island.

"It is not the gravest offence, although his swim to Pier 3 did necessitate a journey to Auckland central police station and further embarrassment for England’s management, but it merely reinforces the perception that what has unfolded in the southern hemisphere this last month is closer to Mike Tindall’s stag do than professional athletes striving to attain a world championship.

"Sadly, this tournament has felt like a cover version, a tribute to World Cup debacles past, perpetrated by England’s footballers"

Toby Flood reflects on England's exit from the World Cup © Getty Images

Patrick Collins delivers a bruising assessment of England's flawed World Cup campaign in the Mail on Sunday.

"As the cruel old football chant has it: 'You're not very good!' It was a recurring theme last night, as a sorely abused and casually underestimated French team demonstrated the jarring facts of tournament rugby.

"France are highly unlikely to win the Webb Ellis Trophy; their faults are obvious, their essential spirit uncertain. But when they choose they can play at daunting pace and with rigorous precision.

"And last night, at all the important junctures of an absorbing match, they chose. For the best part of an hour, France produced a game that the English do not know."