Nick Cain column: Which leader will march to England’s new drum beat?

Eddie Jones will appoint an England captain when the Red Rose squad meets in January to prepare for the Six Nations, and the canvassing for the leadership role stepped up this week. However, Jones has the experience not to rush to judgment on the captaincy, and given the lack of cast-iron candidates he might be best advised to wait until he has picked his starting line-up against Scotland before he picks his man.
That will give the new head coach the flexibility he needs given that there is not a player outside Anthony Watson and Mike Brown who played consistently well in England’s doomed World Cup campaign.
The loudest drum being banged so far has been for Joe Launchbury, with the Wasps rugby director Dai Young, delivering a resounding endorsement of the young lock’s leadership potential. Young compared the 24-year-old Launchbury to Sam Warburton, whom he commended to Warren Gatland at 22 as Wales captain when he was coaching Cardiff Blues.
Young said: “I see real leadership skills in Joe and you’ve got four years to build it…building that trust from coach to captain, building that understanding of what the coaching team want in certain areas and making certain decisions.”
He added, “I see a lot of similarities with Sam. Both are very sensible, don’t go chasing the limelight, don’t do things that will draw attention. Joe leads from the front, and doesn’t speak for the sake of it. It’s a role Joe would grow into and get better all the time until he’s a natural. To me he is somebody the players would get right behind … he would make a great England captain.”
Yet, despite the eulogy, Launchbury is not leading Wasps this season, with Young appointing James Haskell and Matt Mullan as his co-captains. So his leadership credentials remain unproven at club level.
There have been constant fanfares for Launchbury since he made his England debut in 2012, and, at his best, he is impressive in the loose with good hands and mobility. The flipside of the coin is that he has been inconsistent over the course of his 28 caps and, during the 2015 World Cup and its build-up, he was part of one of the poorest England packs I can recall.
Launchbury is not yet imposing enough as a tackler, carrier or mauler – despite winning the occasional turn-over – and he is not recognised as one of the best lineout or re-start locks in the Premiership, let alone Test arena.
For the moment Launchbury is neither world-class by the second row yardstick set by New Zealand’s Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock, nor assured of his England place.
In an era in which there is fierce competition to see who can raise the bar in the second row, with Ed Slater, Maro Itoje, Dave Attwood, George Kruis, Courtney Lawes, Graham Kitchener and Josh Beaumont all in the mix, it would be premature to promote Launchbury.
Should he outshine those rivals over the next six months, and lead by example for both club and country, then Launchbury could become a credible skipper in a way he is not right now.
The second loudest noise on the campaign trail was the predictable tub-thumping from Conor O’Shea, with the Harlequins rugby director advocating the retention of Chris Robshaw as England captain. This, despite the fact that for the second season running former Ireland full-back O’Shea has opted to dispense with Robshaw’s services as Quins captain, with Danny Care succeeding Joe Marler.
Surely, if O’Shea has such unshakeable belief in Robshaw’s leadership ability, this post-World Cup period was the time, of all times, to back his man with action rather than words?
Tom Wood, who was Robshaw’s stand-in during Stuart Lancaster’s coaching tenure, is another candidate. However, while Wood was better than most of England’s underperforming forwards during the World Cup, he is not exceptional in any department. This means his place in the starting line-up at blindside is under threat with the likes of Slater, Itoje and Dave Ewers pressing their cases, and Haskell still in contention.
Much as Jones says he’s wiped the slate clean, staying with Robshaw and Wood would be a step back to a failed regime – especially as neither emerged as clear-headed, decisive leaders. Robshaw was torpedoed by his failure to kick for goal to secure the draw against Wales, while Wood revealed in a post-match glitch that he was calculating from the wrong scoreline in the warm-up against France.
Then there’s Dylan Hartley. The idea that the Northampton hooker could be restored as England captain would be a car-crash waiting to happen given his disciplinary rap-sheet. Northampton have tried the poacher-turned-gamekeeper stuff and it hasn’t worked, with Hartley missing a Lions tour and a World Cup because he cannot keep the lid on his temper.
Ben Youngs has also been mentioned, with speculation that Jones likes scrum-half captains because of his choice of George Gregan during his Wallaby tenure. Gregan was not only a model of consistency, he also had natural authority. The Leicester No.9 does not, and his form is up and down. Nor, in terms of judgment, was broadcasting that England aimed to “blow Australia away” in the first quarter of their World Cup showdown the wisest of calls.
Brown has also been listed as a contender, not least because of his consistency and unflinching commitment. However, he is a firebrand whose emotions are never far from the surface, and captaining from full-back is not ideal because you are too detached from the tactical hub.
Having done such a good job in taking over the captaincy of the 2014 junior world champions, England U20 side, Itoje has also been mooted as a long-term solution. He is a tremendous prospect, who has looked in his element since breaking into the Saracens starting line-up last season. However, because Lancaster overlooked him for the World Cup squad, he has yet to play for England – and until he gets the chance to show that he is effective in the international arena it would be a huge, and unnecessary, gamble.
Which brings us to Slater, who is also uncapped, but captained England’s dirt-trackers to a good win over the Crusaders in New Zealand the summer before last. He has been reappointed as Leicester club captain following his return from knee surgery, and, having missed out on the World Cup, is finding his way back to the form that made him one of the outstanding forwards of the 2014 season.
Whether at lock or blindside, Slater faces stiff competition, but he is an all-rounder with an authority, level-headedness and grit that puts him top of my list. He has to get back to his best in a hurry to make the cut for the Six Nations, and probably needs to step away from social media, but irrespective he has the makings.
Jones may be under pressure to make a long-term, or even medium term appointment. However, the best course of action looking at the landscape as it is now, could be to pick a captain match-by-match until he finds the right man for the job.