Serious flaws in England's "Project Everest

It appears, from comments made by the RFU’s CEO Bill Sweeney, that the RFU want to appoint an Englishman as the next England Head Coach and, moreover, want to have the appointment in place prior to the 2023 World Cup to ensure a smooth handover from Eddie Jones.

This process is, apparently well under way and even has a name – ‘Project Everest” and a “war room” – whatever that is.

The problem is, of course, that such a plan already places unnecessary limitations on any prospective appointment.

Firstly, it more or less confirms that Eddie Jones will be going nowhere until his contract ends after the World Cup as it is hardly feasible that any of the supposed leading candidates would be available to take over in the short term (unless, perhaps, it was one of Jones’s assistants such as Richard Cockerill).

Then you have to consider the likelihood of any candidate being available prior to the next Worlds Cup. Such a requirement would almost certainly rule out the likes of Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards, for instance, who will be committed to that tournament with Ireland and France respectively.

Effectively, therefore, if Farrell and Edwards are ruled out, we will be looking at coaches currently in club roles – the likes of Stuart Lancaster at Leinster, Rob Baxter at Exeter and Steve Borthwick at Leicester, none of which would be problem-free appointments.

All are, as far as I know, under contract. Lancaster, of course, has already been there, done that, got the t-shirt and I would be surprised if he wanted another crack at the role, despite the fact that he made a pretty decent fist of it until getting it all badly wrong at the 2015 World Cup. 

Baxter, meanwhile, has shown little appetite to date for working outside of the confines of Exeter. He is a fantastic day-to-day coach at club level but whether he is suited to or even interested in the very different demands of international rugby remains to be seen.

And then there is Borthwick, who has transformed the fortunes of Leicester Tigers and, of course, who has had international coaching experience with both Japan and England. The problem is that, as yet, Leicester have yet to win anything and I am sure Borthwick would not really want to walk away from the Tigers role with the job seemingly unfinished.

So, laudable as the RFU intentions are, their plans are hardly without issues. Unless the plan is to promote from within – and of the assistant coaches only Cockerill is remotely qualified to be head coach – then problems abound. 

My view is quite simple. Find and decide on the best man for the job. If he is English, great. If he is available to accept a seamless handover from Eddie Jones, even better. But please don’t hamstring yourselves by setting criteria which severely limit your choices.

Total Flanker – the older I get, the better I was