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."
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