The Rugby Club panel is concerned England are not developing under Martin Johnson's management.
England failing to progress, agree Rugby Club panel
The Rugby Club panel expressed their concern at England's failure to develop under the management of Martin Johnson, after assessing the country's performance at the 2010 Six Nations.
England finished third behind Ireland and Grand Slam winning France, despite a spirited performance in Paris in the final round of matches, but for Stuart Barnes, Dewi Morris and Will Greenwood it was another disappointing tournament for Johnson's side.
Barnes told Rugby Club that he could not see how England can progress with the current management and mentality.
"If it is a results driven business then since Martin Johnson has been in charge England are around the 40 percent mark in terms of winning and that's not enough for one of the biggest rugby nations in the world," he said.
"In terms of performance nobody, except somebody deluded who just wanted to kid themselves, would say England have developed.
"They have gone forward a little bit and then they've gone back a little bit. Young players like Dylan Armitage, who started so well in the early days, have faded away.
"There is no clear path of progress at the moment and I think (Martin Johnson suggesting England are progressing) is disingenuous at best, deluded at worst."
Progress
Morris agreed with Barnes, feeling England are making anything other than progress at the moment.
"Honestly, they are going backwards," he said. "They have not learnt and are not developing their game.
"It is frustrating because I don't want to sit here and be negative about England because I was rejuvenated watching their performance against France.
"But Martin talks about hindsight, but it's not hindsight. We have seen these guys play well at the beginning of the year, players like Ben Foden and Chris Ashton. But how good do you know they are going to be unless you play them?"
For Greenwood, it was the basic method of play from England which frustrated him during the tournament.
"The statistics tell some startling facts," he said "The one for me, and we talked about it all campaign, is in the modern game you have to offload and you have to offload in contact.
"This falls into John Wells' territory of the forwards and they were bottom of the offloading stats.
"To have that inability to play out of contact is absolutely stifling us. We played with some dynamism in those first ten minutes against France and saw the difference it can make but at the moment 'too one dimensional' would be the overall award for England in this Six Nations."
No comparison
Director of Elite Rugby at the RFU Rob Andrew has tried to explain that the World Cup winning team of 2003 had to experience their own defeats to learn how to win major tournaments - a comparison Barnes refuted.
"It depresses me to hear Rob Andrew say the World Cup winning team lost a lot of games before they won.
"Hang on a minute. In the meantime this World Cup team were scoring 50 points against Welsh teams, they were devastating teams.
"Yes, they did some daft things but you have to make the errors to learn how good you can be.
"My gripe with this England team is that for two years Martin Johnson is more concerned with errors made than creative acts done. That's the big issue. I hope we learn from the France game but the question is, will this management learn?"
