RWC 2015: England's Stuart Lancaster fails to kill suspicion that he’s scared of taking risks

When all’s said and done – and Stuart Lancaster has said a lot, appearing at 9am sharp on Sunday morning and venturing patiently back into the same discussion about his squad’s failings for the fourth time in four days – it’s hard to dispel the notion that ice in his veins is what’s missing.

He cautioned late on Saturday, after his young speed kings had elevated England to a seven out of 10 win over Uruguay, about the need to balance things up with ball-carriers – the same utilitarian philosophy we heard from him when George Ford had flourished in the 55-point haul against France in March when he accused his side of “overplaying at times”.

There comes a time at the very top level of sport when the instinctive acts are needed, because they are what separate the very good from the great. Those are the moments for a coach to believe in his heart that quality is there and to let go.

It is hard not to come back to the evidence writer Neil Squires uncovered by doing the hard yards on England’s coach for a biography, The House of Lancaster. When Lancaster’s relentless search for self-analysis and self-improvement led him to ask his Leeds academy trainees to assess him, in the 2005/06 season, it was his response to risk-taking which gave them their only cause for concern. He would blame them if things went wrong, they said.

Lancaster being Lancaster, he noted this down and promised to improve. But in the small details of the inevitable recriminations which began to reveal themselves yesterday, it was the same risk-averse individual we saw.

It was not so much what Luther Burrell’s friends revealed about the tears he shed when omitted from the squad in place of Sam Burgess, as the last-minute manner of that omission: so much against the grain of Lancaster’s pre-calculation that Burrell had delayed his wedding to play in the tournament. The selection of Burgess was, of itself, a risk but the instinct behind it, pressed upon Lancaster by Andy Farrell, was deeply conservative. He could not maintain faith in what he held.

He spoke of how, after this death by 1,000 cuts concludes with a Downing Street engagement non Monday for World Cup coaches at which the Queen will be present, he will think more about why England failed. But can there actually be any inflection on England’s exit which he has not already turned over 100 times? The point is that you cannot micro-manage the bold, instinctive decisions required when the white heat of competition arrives.

There is a growing sense that his players don’t want to lose him, for all that. The manner in which even the excluded have spoken for him reveals much, though the most articulate advocate spoke late on Saturday night, in the depths of the City of Manchester Stadium. Lancaster’s work-rate had been “unbelievable,” Tom Wood said. “Personally – and I think I can speak for most of the lads – I want Stuart and the coaches to come out fighting. I can’t speak highly enough of Stuart as a bloke and as a coach. It’s not my job to make those decisions. For me personally we stick together and I back him.”

Wood detailed the way in which he wants to prevent those with a grudge to bear to shout loudest. There was a look in his eye when he indicated that he expected the players’ view to carry weight. His reflections stretched way beyond the usual blandishments of players for coaches and it made you wonder, all over again, why the man standing in front of us has not been Lancaster’s captain all this time.

He and Chris Robshaw were in close contention when Lancaster took the reins, before injury to Wood made Robshaw the man in possession for the 2012 Six Nations campaign, never to relinquish the post. Intelligent conversation alone never made a captain but Wood’s emergence as spokesman – left by the RFU to speak as he sees fit, with no one having the temerity to mention media training – is not all that he brings. At least one of the decisions ahead seems elementary.

Lancaster has not disguised the fact that he feels he has unfinished business and to have heard him speaking last week, while hearing what his players say, makes you yearn for a settlement which he would feature in. The Saxons role is an obvious one, though such a diminishment that you wonder if it would be too much to bear.

A far better prospect would be a partnership with the man whose writing on England in the Daily Mail throughout this tournament has given cause to wonder, again and again, why Sir Clive Woodward is not on the inside of England.

Woodward’s written articulation of the need for an RFU director of rugby yesterday will amuse the cynics and, in essence, it was a job pitch. But Lancaster as coach – with his emerging structure and a squad richly populated with youth – allied to a director, Woodward, with his intuitive grasp of what winning looks like, feels like a combination with which England could begin to look forward.

It will require work from both sides: for Woodward a resolve to resist the temptation to hover over Lancaster and future coaches, undermining them. Circumspection has not always come easily to him. But it could work.

Nick Easter spoke memorably after Saturday’s 10-try, 60-3 victory about the need to start winning. “Let’s look at immediate success, the here and now,” said the 37-year-old. “Let’s win a Six Nations, win a Grand Slam. There’s a three-Test tour to Australia, who are looking as good as any Australia team I can remember in my career: let’s win those games so that we know how to win them and then remember those situations.”

It sounded simple because that’s how success in sport can be. Lancaster turned 46 on Friday. It is not too late for him to learn that.