Lancaster gone; a sad but necessary departure.

The inevitable has finally happened and Stuart Lancaster has stepped down as head coach of the English National Rugby team and I for one feel it as being bittersweet.

Stuart Lancaster felt 'deeply saddened' by leaving England post.

When Lancaster was made interim coach four years ago he came into the job with no experience and virtually no name in the game of rugby union. He might have done amongst those involved in the professional game but to me, as a fan, I had no clue to whom the RFU had appointed. 

A few months down the line and a lot media speculation later we then had this 'unknown man' made permanently positioned and at the time it was a bit of a head-scratcher. The RFU is well-known for being the richest Union in world rugby and instead of forking out a huge sum of money for an experienced and renowned coach they put their faith in new-boy Lancaster. 

It all seemed great at first. We had a new captain in Chris Robshaw who, I believe, only had 1 international cap to his name. We had a complete overhaul of nearly the entire starting XV with lots of young players being brought in. We had a new coaching set-up. And lastly we had a promise that he was going to focus 100% of his efforts into building a squad capable of competing for the world title in the home 2015 world cup. 

Well... that went well. 

It certainly felt embarrassing to be an England fan in this year's world cup and it did feel like the last four years of work had been completely pointless. But maybe we have learnt something out of this ordeal and maybe we can take some positives out of Lancaster's reign. 

Owen Farrell and George Ford; a product of Lancaster's reign.

1. He rebuilt the pride in wearing the red rose and instilled discipline that was nowhere to be seen in New Zealand in 2011.

2. He did bring some quality young players to the forefront. Anthony Watson, George Ford and Owen Farrell to name a few.

3. He has left behind a very promising group of players with a great mixture of experience and youth. 

This means that maybe someone will come in and utilise the little good work that Lancaster has done. It is just such a shame that Lancaster can't be the man to do it. He has over the last four years been honest and open about the squad's performance and has been  constantly described by pundits as a 'lovely man'.And I think it's because that after hearing of his departure most people felt a lot of sympathy for him. 

He has done almost everything that could have been asked of him but just not quite got the mixture right. My personal feeling is that the biggest problem with English rugby is the board that runs it, the RFU. Hopefully now the RFU will realise that building up for something is great but international sport is all about getting results straight away. We haven't won a six nations title under Lancaster and to be honest, that is simply awful with the team he had. You can't win a world cup if you can't win Europe's competition.

MJ