England's Next Coach: Ranking the Possible Successors to Stuart Lancaster

The inevitable came to pass on Remembrance Day with the departure of Stuart Lancaster from his role as England’s head coach.

England’s failure to progress from their World Cup pool was always likely to signal the end of Lancaster’s time in the job, and with the fallout encompassing training ground rows, bad share tips and the Sam Burgess debacle, his regime began to look somewhat calamitous by the end.

Despite the time Lancaster spent on overhauling the culture in the squad, he will not be retained in any capacity by the Rugby Football Union, while the man who gave him the job—and a six-year contract—chief executive Ian Ritchie, is now charged with the task of finding his replacement.

Ritchie appeared to narrow the field in the first post-Lancaster press conference by insisting England will go for a coach with proven international experience. This points strongly to the next man being an overseas name.

Only Mike Ford, Dean Ryan and Steve Diamond are current Premiership coaches with experience inside international set-ups; Ford with Ireland and England, Ryan briefly with Scotland and Diamond with Russia.

Ford ruled himself out in an interview on BBC Radio 5 Live in October, and Diamond’s role with the lowly Russians hardly smacks of the world-beating pedigree the RFU will now look for in their next man.

Ryan’s credentials as a coach and analytical thinker are sky high thanks to his work as a pundit on Sky Sports and his column in the Guardian, and he was another name linked before Lancaster’s appointment.

But the former Wasps and Newcastle back rower poured fresh cold water on the idea, per Ian Morgan of the Worcester News.

I am not even interested in the speculation.

I signed up here (Worcester Warriors) for a specific challenge and I have no interest in my life or anything else being anywhere close to the rumours.

I understand the need to ask the question but it’s not going to change the answer. I have never really been interested in it because I don’t think you can be successful in it.

As far as other Englishmen go, Jim Mallinder of the Northampton Saints and Richard Cockerill of Leicester Tigers are the most experienced coaches in the Premiership and have both won trophies at club level, but it looks like they will not be considered under the criteria Ritchie outlined.

Alongside them, Exeter's Rob Baxter has been frequently mentioned. He took the Chiefs from the Championship and has quickly established them as play-off contenders on an annual basis in the Premiership.

He has also brought through a number of promising young English players along the way, with Jack Nowell, Henry Slade, Dave Ewers and Luke Cowan-Dickie all with possible England futures. But Baxter falls into the same category as Lancaster in not having coached anywhere else or won anything.

Since England’s exit, Lancaster’s CV has been used as a stick to beat him with when compared to Warren Gatland, Joe Schmidt, Steve Hansen, Eddie Jones and Michael Cheika, who all won gongs in previous jobs before taking the hot seat. On those grounds, it seems unlikely Baxter will get the top job this time around.

So we will assess the experienced international coaches most hotly linked with the job.

England have declared money is no object in their bid to secure the best possible name, per James Riach of the Guardian, so one of them could be about to get very rich indeed.

This ranking ignores the current odds and contractual situations each coach finds himself in, instead placing them in order of best man for the job.

Robbie Deans was the man many thought would replace Graham Henry following New Zealand’s 2007 World Cup quarter-final exit.

Henry was retained, however, and Deans, who won three Super Rugby titles with the Canterbury Crusaders, hopped across the "ditch" and took charge of Australia.

His time with the Wallabies wasn’t an overwhelming success, and it ended with their 2013 series defeat to the British and Irish Lions.

Currently coaching in Japan, the 56-year-old would fit the bill of a coach who knows the southern-hemisphere style and has been in a top Tier-One job, understanding everything that entails.

The Telegraph added him to its list of candidates for the role, stating: "Many felt that his style of man-management was not suited to the temperaments of the Aussie squad at the time and would be far more successful with English players."

That unremarkable spell with Australia has somewhat dented the regard Deans is held in, however, and he remains a long shot.

Jake White led the Springboks to glory in 2007 and has always seen his name touted whenever a major international job has come up.

He spent time coaching the Sharks in South Africa, where he guided them to the semi-finals of Super Rugby, before a short, successful stint at the Brumbies included a win over the 2013 British and Irish Lions.

Currently, the 52-year-old is at Montpellier. White, who has twice been in the frame for the job before, told Sky Sports:

I've said before, if the RFU were genuine about picking a foreign coach and considered me to be the right man for the job, it would be naive of me to tell you I wasn't interested.

Let's wait and see - I've been in this position before and I've said openly I don't want to be in the middle of shortlists. If they genuinely think I'm the right guy and it's the way forward for English rugby, then I would put my hand up.

White has the pedigree to step into the role but is seen by some observers as somewhat prosaic in his preferred style of rugby, as Stuart Barnes illustrated in the same piece for Sky Sports: "Jake White is not the man to take England on. He plays a very negative way. If Stuart Lancaster did try to do something, it was to try and project a way of playing that made England feel good about themselves. I don't want to go back to the dark ages."

Ireland head honcho Joe Schmidt has taken them to two Six Nations titles in two years following great success with Leinster.

Another New Zealander with a strong track record of international success, the 50-year-old meets the criteria the RFU outlined, and he has shown his ability to instil a successful style of rugby in this crop of Irish players.

Ruadhri O'Connor of the Irish Independent has reported that the man from Woodville has expressed no interest in the role and plans to stay put at least until the end of his current deal in 2017.

Schmidt has also recently become an Irish citizen, per the Irish Times, hardly the move of a man with an eye on a new job in a different country.

It is looking increasingly likely that England will need to buy their preferred man out of an existing job, which means Warren Gatland may well be the man they go for.

The Wales coach ticks all the boxes Ian Ritchie outlined, but there must be a question mark over his record when the Welsh have played the big southern-hemisphere sides, with only two wins from 27 Tests.

Having won three Six Nations titles and two Grand Slams—as well as guiding Wales to the 2011 World Cup semi-finals and coaching the Lions to a first series win for 16 years in 2013—he remains very much a credible candidate, and England would not baulk at the reported £1.2 million buyout clause in his contract.

England may be looking for the man to win them the next World Cup, but having not scooped the Six Nations trophy for four years and going 12 years without a Grand Slam, perhaps their measure of success should be recalibrated.

Gatland would also be likely to bring Shaun Edwards with him. The defence coach was approached in 2008 about the England Saxons job, per Neil Squires of the Daily Express, at which point he zipped along the M4 to sign for Wales.

He has been mentioned as a candidate for the top job in his own right once again, but perhaps the alchemy he seems able to create alongside his long-time No. 1 is the mix the RFU should be getting the chequebook out for.

Having only been with Australia for a year, it seems far-fetched to think Michael Cheika would be ready to head north so soon.

But stories surfaced before Lancaster’s departure that the ex-Leinster boss had been sounded out, per Sky Sports.

Cheika’s stock has risen exponentially in the last two years. Having constructed a Heineken Cup-winning team at Leinster, he moved back home to the Waratahs and steered them to the Super Rugby title in 2014.

The 48-year-old was then called to salvage the Wallabies a year out from the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and he promptly picked up the Rugby Championship at his first attempt as well as taking them to the top of the Pool of Death and to the final itself.

Cheika is not a man who marches to anyone else's tune, as evidenced by his overhaul of Australia’s rules on overseas-based players that enabled him to pick Matt Giteau and Drew Mitchell for the World Cup.

One would imagine England’s stance on the same issue would be the first thing Cheika would take a sledgehammer to, which would immediately set him on a collision course with the Premiership clubs.

Eddie Jones is riding a wave of worldwide acclaim after guiding Japan to their most successful World Cup campaign ever.

Their defeat of South Africa shook the rugby world to its foundations, but it proved not to be a blip, as the Brave Blossoms then knocked off Samoa and the USA.

The 55-year-old has also previously led Australia to a World Cup final and was part of the coaching team for South Africa when they won the Webb Ellis Cup in 2007.

He would appear to be out of England’s reach having signed a deal to coach South African Super Rugby franchise the Stormers, but that didn’t stop the former Randwick man issuing a thinly veiled message to the RFU when asked about the stories linking him to the Red Rose job.

Per the Belfast Telegraph, he said: "If anyone comes knocking on your door it's polite to answer. That's all I have said. If anyone comes knocking on my door, I answer and say 'hello, how are you?' and then listen to what they have got to say. I have not said I am interested. All I've said is I will be polite. I am a polite guy."

Jones has also had his say on the type of man England should go for next and believes they should select an experienced candidate, per Paul Rees of the Guardian.

Ian Ritchie has said getting the best man is more important than getting the appointment made quickly.

Could this even mean they are prepared to let Jones see out a season of Super Rugby and take the reins in the summer?

That would seem unlikely, given they installed Lancaster as an interim man last time round and ended up giving him the job over experienced candidates like Nick Mallett, who has already ruled himself out.

Arguably, the most well-informed campaign has been constructed around Wayne Smith, the New Zealander who has just departed his role as assistant coach of the All Blacks.

Smith has held the top job in New Zealand and also has experience of the English club game after a spell in charge of Northampton.

Indeed, when Stuart Lancaster was given the job, he asked Smith to join his set-up. Ironically, had Nick Mallett been handed the role, Smith would have done exactly that.

Now, with Smith reported to be keen on taking a year off to see some of Europe, two former Saints players have put a compelling case forward for the 58-year-old to be tempted away from his extended holiday by the RFU.

Former Saints and England fly-half Paul Grayson told BBC Radio 5 Live:

I hold him in very high esteem because of his rugby intellect and his ability to dissect the game.

He has done every job under the sun for the All Blacks; technical analyst, he’s just won the World Cup as defence and counter-attack coach…the guy is a rugby computer, and he understands how to get the best out of players.

Grayson’s old Saints half-back partner Matt Dawson echoed those sentiments and added that Smith would bring his own brand of “brutal honesty” to the job.

The odds on the former Waikato coach are lengthening by the day, however, with BBC Sport reporting that he has reiterated his stance on having 2016 away from the game

Smith has also previously stated he would find it hard to coach a team that would threaten the All Blacks.