Rob Andrew loses senior role as RFU issues a World Cup apology

THE FIRST glint of a fresh start for English rugby may have emerged at Twickenham yesterday as new acting chief executive Stephen Brown apologised for their team’s behaviour and performances at the World Cup and promised a new approach at every level.

And although elite rugby director Rob Andrew remains, he will no longer have any involvement with the senior team, effectively demoted from elite to professional level, while a caretaker coach will be appointed to oversee the Six Nations Championship campaign.

The interim appointment will give the Rugby Football Union the time they need to appoint a permanent replacement for Martin Johnson, who resigned last month.

Brown, also the union’s chief financial officer, and Ian Metcalfe, chairman of the Professional Game Board (PGB), were forthright in their condemnation of England’s performances on and off the field as well as much of the foggy leadership of their own union.

Metcalfe, however, delivered an impassioned defence of the under-fire Andrew, who will move to yet another new role, that of professional rugby director without any responsibility for the senior side. The planned appointment of an elite rugby director to whom the new coach would report has now been shelved, again reducing the chance of a return to the organisation for 2003 World Cup winning coach Clive Woodward.

Brown said he hoped the RFU would be more open in its dealings with the media and public and began his first news conference since replacing Martyn Thomas as acting CEO with a wide-ranging apology that stuck a very different note to the evasive approach taken by Johnson and the union during the tournament in New Zealand.

“The most important thing is to make an apology to the fans and people who love the game for the performance of the World Cup and the surrounding events,” he said. “We’ve fundamentally let ourselves down and the sport of rugby down. It’s important we recognise that standards of performance and behaviour were below what we would expect.”

Metcalfe said he was frustrated that players’ confidential opinions on the World Cup campaign had been published in the press last week and, although he apologised to the players and coaches for the “inexcusable” leak, he added: “But we must not get so wrapped up in finding the leaker to ignore the real issues we have in England rugby.”

Metcalfe listed the key recommendations of the PGB board review but was unable to confirm local media speculation that England Saxons coach Stuart Lancaster would be the caretaker coach for the Six Nations campaign, which begins for England with a trip to play Scotland at Murrayfield on 4 February.

“There is a real determination that we should recruit the best man for the head coach’s job, that we should take the time needed to do that and that the support structures around that person are world class,” Metcalfe said.

He said he hoped the union would have a new chief executive in place by the end of the year and that there would be a new senior role of “England team manager” created to oversee all non-playing aspects.

Metcalfe insisted that Andrew’s new position, his fourth job in the last four years, was not a demotion. He added that while he accepted Andrew had made mistakes, the union had let him down in failing to explain “the enormous width of his role”.

“We’ve failed Rob in the way that we’ve treated him. . . he has a significant contribution to make,” said Metcalfe.