RUGBY World Cup was going to be the launching pad of English rugby and a brave new world, that was the pre-tournament message, but alas for the home nation it turned into a nightmare. Indeed they became the only host nation in the tournament’s history not to make the knockout stages.
In fact, they were mathematically out after the third pool game, against Australia, on October 3, just 15 days after they had opened the tournament with a decent win over Fiji. Their failure came as a seismic shock and badly stalled the development of the domestic game in England which was looking ...