Twickenham officials have rejected claims that the Wallabies coach, Michael Cheika, has been approached about potentially coaching England. A report in The Australian newspaper suggested Cheika had been sounded out by the Rugby Football Union president, Jason Leonard, but a RFU spokesman has “categorically denied” any such conversation occurred.
It is also understood the RFU chief executive, Ian Ritchie, has not authorised Leonard to approach anyone and that the review into England’s World Cup under-achievement – with the future of the current coach, Stuart Lancaster, still up in the air – is continuing.
Cheika, recently named world coach of the year after guiding the Wallabies to the Rugby Championship title and to the World Cup final, is contracted to the Australian Rugby Union until 2017 and has been in his present role for barely a year.
Even if some form of informal contact with Cheika was made, the words “wishful” and “thinking” spring to mind. Cheika may have been publicly vague about his plans beyond 2017 but it requires a major leap of the imagination to see him abandoning Sydney for Twickenham, particularly as Australia will be hosting three Tests against England in June. “I’m in to 2017 and for me it’s irrelevant whether I’m on to 2019 or 2017 or 2016,” said Cheika last week. “I want to do the best so the team is in the right position to keep getting better in the future.”
It was also the Wallabies who confirmed England’s World Cup exit with a 33-13 victory last month, since when Lancaster’s position has been under review. The head coach, along with his assistants Andy Farrell and Graham Rowntree, signed six-year contracts only last year but his side’s failure to make the knockout stages and Sam Burgess’s decision last week to return to rugby league have scarcely strengthened his hand.
Lancaster and fellow coaches have already been interviewed as part of the review process, with Ritchie due to report to the RFU’s management board next Tuesday. Cheika, ironically, will also be in the UK next week to coach the Barbarians in games against Gloucester and Argentina.
With England needing to identify a squad for the Six Nations in the coming weeks, a decision on whether to retain Lancaster or to offer him an alternative role within the union cannot be delayed much longer for the sake of all parties. Lancaster has so far resisted any temptation to resign but has endured an unenviable month since Australia and Wales reached the quarter-finals at England’s expense.
Before his side’s final pool match against Uruguay there was also a report from South Africa that the former Springboks coach Nick Mallett had been contacted by the union and sounded out about his availability. Mallett, however, later said he had been misquoted.
