France 19 England 12:TO view England's exit from the 2011 Rugby World Cup as an unfortunate blip would be horribly blinkered. Had any other major nation underachieved as spectacularly at this tournament, those in charge of the squad would be seeking alternative employment already.

England being England, things work slightly differently. Martin Johnson appears keen to stay on, as do virtually all his coaches. Round and round the houses they go, wondering why they so often end up in the same old cul-de-sacs.

Rob Andrew, charged with making the all-important recommendation to the RFU’s management board, must know a dead end when he sees one.

Instead of conducting a review lasting weeks and weeks he should sit down with whoever qualifies as the most influential senior figure at Twickenham nowadays and watch the first halves of England’s World Cup games against Argentina, Georgia, Scotland and France.

Then he should stick on the tapes of Wales’s games against South Africa and Ireland. Johnson and Andrew are forever stressing that players involved in their first World Cup are a risky proposition. Why, in that case, have Sam Warburton, Rhys Priestland, Dan Lydiate, Toby Faletau, Jonathan Davies and George North grown so heroically in the past five weeks while England’s supposed new stars, the likes of Ben Youngs and Courtney Lawes, have so obviously failed to twinkle?

Were England never good enough, or did they collapse beneath a surfeit of overly prescriptive coaching? Most relevantly, how is it possible for a squad of mostly impressive individual characters not to improve the on-field reputation of English rugby one jot in New Zealand, even before dispiriting off-field events are taken into account? It cannot all be coincidental.

A lot of people will be very interested in what happens next. England, even before this World Cup, seldom looked a team capable of beating sides with a bit of bristle about them. All too often they have appeared confused and shapeless, the stone age Romeos of the modern game, unhealthily reliant for match-turning impetus on the 20-year-old Manu Tuilagi and the Northampton turbo twins, Ben Foden and Chris Ashton.

To make matters worse, they were knocked out by a team who had lost faith in their own coach’s man-management and who were comfortably beaten by Tonga last time out.

When Johnson highlighted England’s below-par work at restarts and France’s superior tactical kicking as the main differences between the sides, he was mostly kidding himself. In Imanol Harinordoquy, Dimitri Yachvili, William Servat and Thierry Dusautoir, France had inspiring figures who hungrily seized the moment, rather than forming an orderly queue to do so.

Trailing 16-0 at half-time to tries from Vincent Clerc and Maxime Medard, England showed sufficient spirit to win the second-half 12-3 but the retaliatory strikes from Ben Foden and Mark Cueto merely underlined the chronic lack of execution which preceded them in a 19-12 defeat.

Is it the coaches’ fault if a scrum-half cannot find either one of his two outhalves as both of them line up for a drop-goal attempt? What can they do if Jonny Wilkinson, with all his vast experience, kicks a crucial restart out on the full and throws passes into touch?

If Johnson’s side have consistently lacked one quality it is composure. Whoever replaces the departing class of 2011 – Wilkinson, Lewis Moody, Mike Tindall, Cueto, Nick Easter, Lee Mears, Tom Palmer, Simon Shaw, Steve Thompson, Louis Deacon, Shontayne Hape and Andrew Sheridan have surely played their final World Cup games – a cool head has to be among the prerequisites.

When Johnson predicts a rosier future, he is probably right; by common consent, England’s next generation are a promising bunch. But if they are drip-fed into a setting weakened by a lack of strategic vision, widespread corporate confusion, stubbornly conservative selection and strained media relations, England have no chance of setting the world alight when they host the 2015 tournament.

At the very least, Andrew should consider whether one or more of the following – Graham Henry, Nick Mallett, Eddie Jones, Sir Ian McGeechan, Jim Mallinder, Brendan Venter, Todd Blackadder, Leinster’s Joe Schmidt, Harlequins’ Conor O’Shea and London Irish’s Toby Booth – would bring a greater breadth of vision to the England set-up.

If the answer is an unhesitating “no”, Johnson and his chosen coaches should stay on.

If not, the time has come for a rethink. Even Andrew, deep down inside, must realise a blast of fresh air is urgently needed.

FRANCE:Medard; Clerc, Rougerie, Mermoz, Palisson; Parra, Yachvili; Poux, Servat, Mas, Pape, Nallet, Dusautoir (capt), Bonnaire, Harinordoquy. Replacements: Trinh-Duc for Yachvili (54), Barcella for Poux (55), Szarzewski for Servat (56), Pierre for Pape (65), Marty for Rougerie (68), Picamoles for Harinordoquy (72), Heymmans for Mermoz (78)

ENGLAND:Foden; Ashton, Tuilagi, Flood, Cueto; Wilkinson, Youngs; Stevens, Thompson, Cole, Deacon, Palmer, Croft Moody (capt), Easter. Replacements: Lawes for Croft (47), Corbisiero for Stevens, Shaw for Deacon (both 50), Hartley for Thompson (56), Stevens for Cole, Haskell for Moody (both 63), Banahan for Wilkinson, Wigglesworth for Youngs (both 65)

Referee:S Walsh (Australia)

Guardian Service