Sunday 4 October 2015 14:26, UK
Sky Sports pundit Stuart Barnes has pinned the blame for England's World Cup exit firmly at the door of head coach Stuart Lancaster and his management team.
The hosts crashed out of World Cup at the group stage on Saturday night after losing 33-13 to Australia at Twickenham, a week after also going down to Wales at the same venue.
Barnes believes the quality of England's coaching has not been good enough and he also blasted the selection policy.
He told Sky Sports News HQ on Sunday morning: "The management is not good enough and because the management is not good enough the players have failed when it mattered most.
"People keep saying that Clive Woodward's 2003 team was so much better man for man - that's true - but players improve with the quality of coaching and I don't think we have seen any improvement with this group of players. It's been like a giant rollercoaster and, for me, the big worry has been there's been no clear linear progress.
Whichever way you look at it, you can be as calm, clear, as rational as you like, England have got this horrendously wrong.
"With England, they have sort of gone up and down and they've gone up and down and up and down and every time you think they are getting near the top, the next game they have crashed to the bottom and that's what has happened this World Cup and I think that's a clear indication of management failure.
"Selection has been terrible throughout this tournament, from not picking Steffon Armitage when anyone with a clear head knew that this was exceptional circumstances. What an irony, Matt Giteau scores the final try for Australia yesterday - Australia cannot pick overseas players until Michael Cheika 11 months ago takes charge of the Wallabies and said 'Nonsense, I want the best players available. It's the World Cup'.
"Now for us it's not just the World Cup, it's a home World Cup and Stuart Lancaster didn't have the nerve to drop his captain Chris Robshaw - a good 'six' at club level, not an international 'seven' - for the best openside in Europe in Armitage and Australia destroyed England at the break-down and all the fallacies came home to roost.
"Dylan Hartley wasn't picked in that team, it meant the hooking problem was such a problem that [Joe] Launchbury, brilliant last night, could not start against Wales because Geoff Parling was babysitting Tom Youngs and so it goes and so it goes.
"Henry Slade, [he] didn't want to use him like for like when Jonathan Joseph was injured because he is inexperienced. Well that's true, but why was he inexperienced? Because once England picked him they didn't want to give him a chance to come off the bench against either France or Ireland. Contrast that with Sam Burgess where his selection was an act of blind faith.
"Whichever way you look at it, you can be as calm, clear, as rational as you like, England have got this horrendously wrong and that's why they are out of their home World Cup."
