Why does nobody want to coach England?

Michael Cheika, Graham Henry, Wayne Smith, Steve Hansen, Warren Gatland, Joe Schmidt and Jim Mallinder have ruled themselves out of succeeding Stuart Lancaster - so why is the job not wanted?

The inability to pick overseas players

This is just one of the areas that is likely to raise a red warning flag with prospective candidates. Any ‘super-coach’ would want the comfort of knowing they could do the job the way they wanted; free from interference. Michael Cheika arrived at Australia and immediately brought the likes of Matt Giteau and Drew Mitchell back into the fold, despite the fact that they were playing in France. Their performances at the World Cup were used as a stick with which to beat the RFU, who resisted strong pressure to relax the policy on overseas players and pick the likes of Steffon Armitage and Nick Abendanon.

The relationship with Premiership Rugby

The relationship between the RFU and English clubs is solid in many respects. The England head coach gets good access to players for instance. But Premiership Rugby also has its own commercial and sporting interests and they are not always aligned with the RFU's. The fiasco over Sam Burgess’s position highlighted a lack of cohesion, with Stuart Lancaster and Andy Farrell clearly wanting Burgess to play at 12, but Bath - his main paymaster - wanting him at six. As Will Greenwood pointed out after Burgess’ decision to return to Rugby League: "If New Zealand were in this position - as we saw with Beauden Barrett - and Steve Hansen wanted him to play full-back [with the Hurricanes] because that's where he sees him playing in the World Cup, then he gets that control. As long as we have that divide, then in the grand scheme of things we're going to find it really difficult to close the gap on the southern hemisphere teams.”