Wales rugby coach Warren Gatland has counted himself out of the contest to be England’s next rugby coach.
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“The most important thing is to get the right person”, said Ritchie, admitting England could recruit a foreign boss for the first time.
“That’s because if you don’t have an English head coach, it says to all the coaches who are English and working their way up through the system: You will not get the job unless you go overseas and coach internationally first”.
“But I’ve been in this position before and I’ve said openly I don’t want to be in the middle of shortlists”.
Determined not to be messed around for a third time, White has called on RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie to install him as the organisation’s top choice before he will consider succeeding Lancaster, who was widely criticised for his lack of top-level experience during England’s World Cup pool stage exit.
White on Friday morning said he would be interested in taking over from Stuart Lancaster and that he could win the World Cup for the England if given the job. “The longer the World Cup review lasted, the more unseemly it has been for Stuart Lancaster”.
“Armitage would have provided that”, said Kitson, who spoke about a few of the potential replacements for Lancaster including Japan’s World Cup head coach Eddie Jones.
“And I think before the RFU jump into this perceived need to sign a southern hemisphere coach, they need to hold on a little bit and remember that the set-up in England is very different to the set-ups in Super Rugby”.
But former England fly-half Stuart Barnes was among those who said it was wrong to conflate off-field behaviour with the reasons why England, who last won the Six Nations under Johnson in 2011, were beaten in the quarter-finals by France.
“A sleeping giant as England are, they’ve got all the resources, the history, the tradition”, he told Sky Sports.
The RFU hope to have their man nailed down within the next three months and RFU chairman Bill Beaumont said: “We are looking globally for a new head coach”.
A day after RFU bosses pledged to break the bank to land the world’s best, a stream of “super coaches” appeared to turn their backs on the get-rich-quick opportunity.
In Scotland, Townsend was clear that the decision only underlined the kind of pressure leading coaches are now facing and wondered if it showed the sport was heading down the same path as football, where coaches a handful of bad results can cost a man his job.
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“The current situation on overseas players not being selected unless in exceptional circumstances is not, in my view, an impediment on the team’s performance at the World Cup”, he declared.
