Hopefully, within the next hour or so it will be revealed that Brian Ashton has been sacked as England coach. Hopefully, but I doubt it. The problem is that the RFU would have to admit it has made another mistake and that will not happen.

Anyone who is remotely ‘clued-up’ about English rugby will see that the players play a completely different game at club level from when they play under Ashton. The man is probably a decent coach but he is tactically naive at best and technically ignorant at worst. He is not a manager and that is what England had with Clive Woodward and that is what we need now.

If you are unsure about this, simply watch some club rugby and see how good these players are. Although I personally wouldn’t pick the same 15 as Ashton the players he selected were more than good enough to win the grand slam at a canter.

We have a wealth of good coaches in England, the only problem is, we need a manager and the two are very different positions.