Lancaster Ticks all the Right Boxes

OK, so we're still very much in the honeymoon period, the brave new dawn, if you like, after the dark winter of discontent, but so far England rugby's interim head coach, Stuart Lancaster, ably assisted by his forwards coach, Graham Rowntree, has done just about everything right.

The EPS squad for the RBS Six Nations is spot on, with a changing of the guard. Gone are the likes of Mike Tindall, Nick Easter and Mark Cueto - none of whom were likely to play in the 2015 World Cup in England - and in come a raft of exciting youngsters with already proven track records at the top of the Aviva Premiership or in Europe.

With the likes of Toby Flood, Tom Croft and Dylan Hartley with 30 or 40 caps to their names, and others such as Ben Foden, Ben Youngs, Chris Ashton, Dan Cole with enough test match rugby under their belts, the core of the likely side to face Scotland in the Calcutta Cup at Murrayfield on February 4th has enough experience, plus a recent world cup, under its belt to be not fazed by the bagpipes and fire sure to be meted out by the Scots, whilst in players such as Owen Farrell, Chris Robshaw and Tom Wood, England possess young men with old heads placed upon their shoulders.

Lancaster has changed the traditional, pre-Six Nations training camp from the warmth of Portugal to the north-west outskirts of Leeds, dropped Danny Care after his New Year's Eve misdemeanours and made it his mission to instill a new, more respectful culture within the England set-up. He has, without doubt, played a blinder, but he is too astute not to recognise that it may count for little if England are thumped in Edinburgh, with trips to Rome and, crucially, Paris to come, as well as tricky Twickenham fixtures against Wales and Ireland. That is for the future. For now his job is to forge a new team.

Will he do well? I hope so. Apart from the fact that he has read my first participatory book (so that immediately puts him in my good books) I also bumped into him in Auckland last October where he was there on a watching, fact-finding brief. Little did he know that he would soon be taking charge of many of that world cup England team. I left my mobile phone next to him by mistake and when I returned 20 minutes later he had it ready to be returned. I wish him and Graham Rowntree well. It is about time English rugby smiled again.

Check out highlights from Lancaster's first press conference as interim England coach: