Jeff Probyn: Just 20 games to go for Stuart Lancaster to get it right

With last week’s additions to the Elite Player Squad, Stuart Lancaster gets his one and only chance to choose the players who will take the field in this year’s Six Nations.
What should have been a relatively simple job after the Autumn Internationals, has been made difficult by the erratic performances in the first two games, despite the fact that England won.
Even though England lost the third game against New Zealand it was a fantastic match – but as I said before if you can raise your game only when playing against the best team in the world, you will never be the best team in the world, and therein lies the problem for Lancaster.
With effectively just one more EPS pick in August before the final selection in 2015 for the World Cup, the time for experimentation is over.
Although the summer’s tour to New Zealand may expose some last-minute surprises, it’s unlikely to resurrect the ‘first team’ international aspirations of any of the Press core’s favourite faded stars.
By now Lancaster should know what his best team is and the majority of the squad that is going to take England through to the World Cup final and beyond, but, as fans, we are still struggling to name his starting 15 for this year’s Six Nations.
The questions over the forwards have, for the best part, been answered and there is plenty of strength in depth in most positions, although the openside flanker still remains a matter of conjecture and the gulf between first choice props Alex Corbisiero and Dan Cole and their back-up is just a bit too wide.
However, the backs are a different matter. Despite the abundance of individual talents available to Lancaster and his coaching team they have yet to find the right combination that will gel into a cohesive unit, even with the a number of potentially promising combinations that have been tried.
From scrum-half to wing there are still many unanswered questions and possible combinations waiting to be given game time, but there is so little time and only 20 games left to play before the start of the World Cup.
Picking four scrum-halves in the Six Nations training squad would appear to say that even one of the positions we would have thought was sorted with the Danny Care/ Ben Young combination is still up for grabs.
With a strong pack that looks capable of competing favourably with any team in the world, the temptation to keep Owen Farrell at fly-half because of his ‘Wilkinson like’ kicking ability is understandable, particularly as that was enough to win in 2003.
If that is the style that Lancaster chooses for England then Farrell is the man for the job, particularly as his club (Saracens) are masters of that style of play.
Saracens are currently dominating the Pemiership with what is quite an impressive display of power rugby.
Young Farrell is an exceptional talent who is developing as a player and has done more than enough to hold off the challengers for his shirt if England play a power game, although with George Ford replacing Toby Flood in the squad, Farrell may have to show a bit more than impeccable kicking and demonstrate that he can also launch handling attacks.
The centre pairing of Brad Barritt and Manu Tuilagi although steady and consistent, never really sparkled and, since their respective injuries, the replacements have neither shown the same levels of consistency nor steadiness and the need to test different combinations in the international arena still remains.
Lancaster could play safe and bring Barritt back alongside one of the ‘stand in’ players until Tuilagi is fit, or he could experiment a little by giving Twelvetrees another game alongside Luther Burrell, one of the Premiership form players in the French game. The back three should at last see Lancaster kick the two full-back/one wing combination firmly into touch and go with the traditional two wings and one full-back.
Although those players chosen to play out of position have performed well, they did not have that instinctive knowledge that playing in your preferred position brings and were occasionally exposed.
Full-back is the only position in the backs that seems to have the necessary strength in depth and intense rivalry for the shirt that should guarantee that come the World Cup we have the best that we can wish for.
The hope is that by the time Lancaster makes his final EPS choice before the Cup, every position in the team is equally blessed.
The news that Nottingham rugby club have been saved from liquidation by a group called the Friends of Nottingham Rugby who have committed to investing £750,000 over the next three years, is both good and bad news.
The good news is a club that have developed a list of fine players, including England stars Gary Rees, Rob Andrew and Brian Moore, have been given a lifeline that will guarantee them survival for at least the next three years.
It’s good news because a town like Nottingham, in the middle of rugby heartland, needs a first class rugby team competing at the top of the game.
The bad news is that once again one of the big name clubs of the past have been taken to the brink of bankruptcy in the pursuit of the professional game.
It’s bad news that having created a second tier of professional rugby (the RFU Championship) the RFU have not been able to offer it a pro rata level of funding consummate with it being at the level where many of the future Premiership, and therefore England, players are developed into professional players.
Many clubs at all levels of the game can’t afford professionalism but few will admit it and budget accordingly, which sadly means that Nottingham won’t be the last club we see teetering on the brink of financial oblivion.