England: Will they learn before it’s too late?

To try to calm any rising panic, Lancaster drew what he saw as a comforting parallel. It was that “in 2011 Wales came fourth in the Six Nations and could have been in the World Cup final”.

That is the coldest comfort. Wales had to play almost that entire Six Nations without both their world-class props, and the drop-off when the reserves came on (well, can you name them?) was vast. Once Adam Jones and Gethin Jenkins were back, everyone knew Wales would be fine.

The other comfort he noted was that England would have “a lot more players available” and he has indeed been unlucky with injury. Yet we have previously debunked the notion that there is a 5th Cavalry of pure quality about to return for England. In terms of potential starters from outside the recent squads who will definitely improve the team, there are just Courtney Lawes and David Wilson. Others will help the bench.

Conceivably Manu Tuilagi — if the poor man is ever fit again — might make a difference if England can work out how to get the best from him. At the moment, as with so many injured players in any misfiring squad, the longer Tuilagi is out the better player he is becoming, with the wish fathering the thought.

Yet there is no cavalryman available in the key areas where England are short — no footballing inside centre and no quality openside flanker, save the banished Steffon Armitage. How on earth in the modern era of stylised chaos at the breakdown could the game in Dublin end with so few turnovers and so little slowing down of Ireland ball? If the match statistics are accurate, it is terrifying. Chris Robshaw was startlingly ineffective. So too the (alleged) leadership group in the team.

England may still be crowned RBS Six Nations champions in this mediocre year for standards. But there is a cavernous difference between the Grand Slam and merely winning the title. Throughout the history of the home internationals, it was Slam or nothing. Those teams finishing on the same number of match points were never separated. They were deemed to have ended level — notably in 1973, when all five teams shared the title.

It was only in the late 1990s, when title sponsors arrived and the marketing people demanded someone to whom a trophy could be handed — accompanied by a brain-searing blast of We Are the Champions on the Tannoy at the cheesiest ceremony in the history of cheeses — that anyone bothered to add up the points conceded and deduct them from the points scored.

As the England teams under Geoff Cooke, Jack Rowell and Sir Clive Woodward found, it is so easy to get close and so difficult to actually win it.

If you win the Grand Slam, it means you have triumphantly negotiated all the myriad pitfalls of a home international season. It gives you the brass neck and confidence to challenge the rest in the World Cup as European champions.

That is why England had to win it this year. They have failed. And if England do win the title this year on points difference, the fact that they were taken to the cleaners by Ireland means a miss is as good as 100 miles.

A detailed examination of Dublin reveals baffling errors (see panel). But there was something far more basic. There was absolutely no freedom or spontaneity about England. No joy. The only individualism that could be detected was that of the rumbustious Jack Nowell. Why on earth would you not allow Danny Cipriani just 15 minutes to introduce spontaneity?

Even above the noise of the crowd you could hear the thought processes of this team creaking and clanking. You could sense them mentally referring to pre-match instructions and patterns and running lines, rather than reacting to the game — as when Billy Twelvetrees passed to someone he expected to be there, even though he was not.

Lancaster said he would be keeping a close eye on this weekend’s Aviva Premiership matches. So he should. Teams such as Bath, Northampton, Newcastle, Harlequins, Wasps and Saracens all play with infinitely more fluency and rugby wisdom than do England. Players such as Luther Burrell and Jonathan Joseph, even Dylan Hartley, Dave Attwood, James Haskell and Anthony Watson, play with far less boldness and self-expression when they wear the white jersey.

So does Alex Goode at full-back. That astonishing burst he made that took him out of the deepest trouble behind his own line, past four or five hurtling defenders, weaving and changing his feet till he was in front of the whole England team, was the heroic moment of the match. The composure was astonishing.

But when playing for Saracens, when he makes his clever runs from the back (instead of a hopeful hoof upfield), you find fellow Saracens picking a line to get alongside him to boost the counterattack. While he was running from the back in Dublin, no one picked him up. It was probably not in the game plan.

Whenever England play with such mediocrity you feel for Lancaster. He swept to power on a wave of optimism after the grisly, ill-disciplined era under Martin Johnson and the ghastly lack of attacking prowess of that ill-fated team.

But what do we find now? Under Lancaster the record is almost exactly the same as under the ejected Johnson and in one game fewer; Lancaster’s England have scored just two tries more. The team are better behaved, though still undisciplined on the field, but it seems true character in the squad has been submerged, which is so sad.

Are the characters of the coaches emerging? I cannot remember a selection by Lancaster that has ever made me sit bolt upright in anticipation; or an attacking play that reminded me how sharp Mike Catt, the skills coach, was in his playing prime. Andy Farrell is seen as an inspirational man, so why did Ireland seem to play with more passion?

It was also surprising that Graham Rowntree, the forwards coach, could not eke out an England edge up front. And as for the specialist coaching — still, no England player can launch a kick that is contestable by his chasers, a running sore in this team. Is the environment all it should be or does it need refreshment?

Against Scotland on Saturday, it is not a matter of personnel. England’s team must be broadly similar, though I would switch Haskell to the openside for Robshaw and start Tom Croft.

More important, it is a matter of sending them out without the restraints of over-preparation, without the silly decisions

By some standards (Scotland’s?) England are reasonable. But the only standards that are acceptable today are those needed to reach a World Cup final in a few months in their own country. Their play to date in the Six Nations (one half in Cardiff apart) would not be good enough to get out of their World Cup pool. Full stop.

Lancaster says England’s World Cup campaign is still very much on track. Well, he could hardly say otherwise. But he will forgive those of us who have been to all seven of the World Cups to date — and before each have been fed promises and reassurances that in every case bar one proved ill-founded — if we refuse to accept that.