Rugby-Lancaster's England a triumph, but never on the pitch

By Mitch Phillips LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Stuart Lancaster's reign as England rugby coach has been successful in every area. Except, of course, the only one that matters -- success on the field. As a result, it should be almost inconceivable he will remain in the job once this Rugby World Cup is over. On Saturday the team he created was destroyed 33-13 by Australia in their own stadium. They were outplayed in every area and, on the back of last week's defeat by Wales, became the first England side to go out of the Rugby World Cup in the pool stage. It was a mortifying 80 minutes for players and fans alike. And though Lancaster immediately talked about next week's final game against Uruguay -- and what a flat occasion that will be in Manchester -- he looked a dead man walking when asked would he consider his position in the wake of Saturday's thrashing. "I think I've got to," he said, dead-eyed. "Though it's not going to be my decision. It's not one for now." It all seems a million miles from the optimism when Lancaster took over, back when English rugby was "in a bad place". Toothless on the field and seemingly out of control off it, England had slunk out of the 2011 World Cup with their tails between their legs. The only splashes they had made were on the front pages of Britain's outraged tabloids and in the waters of Auckland harbour when Manu Tuilagi leapt off a ferry following a quarter-final defeat to France. Coach Martin Johnson, a national hero eight years earlier when captaining the team to World Cup glory, departed amid a leaked survey revealing deep rifts in the camp. Lancaster beat off strong foreign competition and overcame those concerned he had never reached international level as a player, to take over. A straight-talking widely-liked son of a farmer from the far northern county of Cumbria, Lancaster immediately identified the need for the national team to reconnect with the sport's grass roots. His first England training session was at his local club in Leeds, some 200 miles and philosophically light years away from their plush Surrey Pennyhill Park base. He jettisoned a group of senior players and blooded seven new ones in his first match, buying himself time and respect when his young team beat Scotland in Edinburgh. LINE IN THE SAND Lancaster was clear on the standards he expected and backed his words with actions when he dropped first-choice scrumhalf Danny Care from his first squad after a drink-driving incident. Relative success came on the pitch with four wins and a defeat to Wales securing the first of what would become four successive second-place Six Nations finishes. Off it he continued to work on rebuilding team culture. It was Lancaster who procured the changing room banner declaring "Hundreds before you, thousands around you, millions behind you" as the last thing his players would see before heading to the Twickenham pitch. It was Lancaster who suggested players get off the coach outside their home stadium, allowing the picnicking throngs in the car parks to cheer and clap their idols in the flesh. And it was Lancaster who secretly asked the parents, wives, former teachers and junior coaches to write tear-jerking personal letters to every player, sharing the pride they felt in their son, husband, or former pupil representing their country. Forwards guru Graham Rowntree, the only coach to survive the post-2011 cull, said Lancaster had dragged English rugby out of the gutter. There were few dissenters. The Rugby Football Union agreed and gave Lancaster the job on a permanent basis. After that first Six Nations he held a media briefing where he unveiled his master plan for the 2015 World Cup and beyond. His attention to detail was remarkable, and he sketched out a projected team for this month's World Cup final boasting a total of precisely 663 caps. He was to come up hundreds of caps, and a whole knockout stage of games short of that target. A tough tour of South Africa, with two defeats and a draw, then November home defeats to Australia and the Springboks again, had the doubters out in force but Lancaster enjoyed what has so far been the high water mark of his tenure with a record-breaking victory over New Zealand - the All Blacks' first defeat since winning the World Cup a year earlier. Things continued to look rosy when four straight wins in the 2013 Six Nations sent England to Cardiff dreaming of a first grand slam for a decade, but instead they were thrashed 30-3. CONSISTENT CAPTAIN In 2014 he took England on a three-test tour of New Zealand, losing all three. Nevertheless, the RFU was delighted at what was going on around the team, if not necessarily in it, and announced Lancaster's contract had been extended to 2020, to help him work with one eye on the 2019 World Cup in Japan. Lancaster considered that All Blacks series to be an essential building block for a still-developing side but one thing he was not able to do was establish a first-choice team, an issue that dogged him right up to Saturday night. Even into World Cup year the team changed with bewildering regularity. One day Bath wing Semesa Rokoduguni was the answer, a week later he was out of the squad never to return. Joel Tompkins, Billy Twelvetrees and Kyle Eastmond all had a run at centre and despite nailing down a regular berth in this year's Six Nations, Luther Burrell found himself dropped from the World Cup squad to make way for Sam Burgess and Henry Slade -- both uncapped before August. Critics cried "panic" but Lancaster replied that what he and his lieutenants Rowntree, Andy Farrell and Mike Catt had seen in training made the new boys "impossible not to select." One area where he has always been consistent is in his captain, Chris Robshaw. Robshaw has spent most of his career being told he is not good enough, but has now led the side more times than anyone but Will Carling. Honest, polite, solid, efficient, hard working, Robshaw ticks all the Lancaster boxes. Critics say he would never have retained his place under another leader. Lurking in the background was Steffon Armitage, the Englishman playing in Robshaw's openside flanker position. Crowned European player of the year, Armitage was banished from internationals by the RFU for plying his trade in France. Lancaster never wavered in that debate either, backing the policy absolutely. He always stressed it was part of a wider picture of building relationships with the English Premiership clubs, and that using a home World Cup to invoke the vague "exceptional circumstances" clause would fatally undermine years of goodwill and trust established with home-based players. BEHAVIOURAL ISSUES The coach also refused to compromise with behavioural issues. Tuilagi was thrown out of the squad for an altercation with a taxi driver; key hooker Dylan Hartley got the same treatment after one on-pitch discretion too many and though Danny Cipriani was eventually reprieved after a drink-driving arrest, the reformed bad boy of the game did not make the final cut. Some of Lancaster's critics claim that he has never really shaken off his schoolteacher role and that he has sacrificed great play in search of great behaviour, with Cipriani exhibit A for the prosecution. Lancaster briefly allowed a hint of anger to show when asked about it. "I've taught and coached for 25 years now, I've seen all types of environments and I'm confident we have a great one," he said. He faced a storm of criticism for playing rugby league convert Burgess in the World Cup, and then for recalling flyhalf Owen Farrell in place of the perceived-to-be more attacking George Ford. While many railed against those decisions, Ian McGeechan, one of the most highly respected coaches in the history of the game, described them as shrewd. But for some muddled thinking against Wales, "Geech" may have been proved right. And so, due to the vagaries of the draw that had three of the top teams in the world grouped together, Lancaster was faced with a must-win game against Australia. In a red-hot atmosphere, 81,000 fans expected the hosts to reclaim "fortress Twickenham" but it was Australia who looked the hungrier, and never looked back. For Lancaster, seeing Bernard Foley slice through for two brilliant tries must have been uncomfortable. Watching his much-vaunted pack outscrummed would have been painful. But for this proud Englishman, hearing large sections of the home crowd boo and jeer as he tried to address them after the match -- that must have been simply unbearable.