Stephen Jones opens up both barrels on the England hierarchy's requests for eternal patience in his Rolling Maul blog for the Times
"It may be a comment on media-driven conceptions and lack of endless patience, but it is life, it is real and it has to be dealt with. While England are in this ruinous cycle of not fronting up to each and every game, while they are still harping about the future, all their coaches and hierarchy are a step closer to the chop with every defeat.
"Sad maybe, but true. If they play as abysmally in the Six Nations as they have these past four weeks, the pressure on Andrew and the coaching group will become intolerable. Out they go, in come another lot, bleating as did the previous two regimes about what a bad hand they have been dealt and why patience would be a virtue.
"If England fans have a clue what is going on, then I haven't met any. The usual bleat comes out about England being a young side with few caps. Fine, for goodness sake, pick a team with more caps and more nous then. The bleat comes out about the Guinness Premiership, and that it should be better at producing players. Andrew had the cheek to point to the RFU academy system and said that the Premiership clubs should take up the baton now that the academy has produced James Haskell and Danny Cipriani.
"Rubbish. The pair have been brought through a hard school by Wasps, by Ian McGeechan and Shaun Edwards. The system run by the RFU produces gym monkeys. If only some of the academy "products" to whom I have spoken felt able to tell Andrew exactly what they thought of the English "system", he would very quickly become disabused."
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