Alex King will be a brilliant England coach, says Will Greenwood

Sky Sports expert Will Greenwood believes Alex King has all the qualities to make England's backline tick.

Northampton head coach Jim Mallinder on Saturday accused the RFU of making an unofficial approach for assistant coach King to become the final addition to Eddie Jones' new-look England backroom staff.

Jones has met with King and Greenwood believes the former Wasps fly-half would be a good appointment if he is recruited by England.

Greenwood said: "Alex King is the bookmakers' favourite, what does an Alex King backline look like?

"Pragmatism, he was a great fly-half and I tend to expect you coach in the way you play a little bit, ability to play what's in front of him, very high skill level, teak tough, much stronger mentally than people give Alex King credit for and a winner.

"I don't think he will come in and reinvent the wheel. Perhaps too much is played about his role in Clermont, he was maturing as a coach in Clermont as opposed to coaching Fofana, Rougerie and Nalanga and co when he was there.

"Now he's at Northampton, very much in charge of the backline and the skills.

"You have to show your colours and he's a great friend of mine so it will always be slightly tinged with bias, but I think he will be a brilliant England rugby coach."

King's Northampton side have failed to ignite their attacking fire so far this season, taking just one win in their previous four games as well as scoring the fewest tries in the Premiership to date. Despite this, Greenwood believes that their problems lie elsewhere and not in their back division.

Greenwood added: "The reason why I think there are problems at Northampton at the minute, this is quite a strange thing to say, is because they are so good somewhere else. Their lineout and scrum are so good and has been digging them out of holes.

"When they won up in Glasgow, yes it was a lovely little grubber round the side from Ben Foden that set up a great try late on, but it was the set piece [which made the win possible]. Scarlets? Set piece. When they won down at the Rec; set piece, the scrum.

"So then it becomes this major issue that has been around since before Jesus was born. If the forwards are doing well up-front they don't give the backs the ball until they have chewed it up and spat it out and decided, 'Now you can have it'.

"I think there has been such a focus on the power game at Northampton that occasionally the backline has not been getting the ball on the front foot."

Paired with their forward dominance, Greenwood believes the uncertainty at fly-half only compounds Saints' try-scoring drought.

He said: "They have then got themselves back into this cycle of, 'Who is our fly-half?' We thought the Myler-Lamb situation had got them into a fuddle a few years ago and they settled on Stephen Myler, and it worked exceptionally.

"Now JJ Hanrahan has come in and again they are dillying and dallying about who is their starting fly-half and the fly-half tends to set the tone, the balance, the alignment, the pace and if you change it makes it quite difficult."