Paul Lewis: English show how not to handle a coach

These are tough times for coaches. Never has the sporting culture been so steadfastly aggressive. Bad results? Bite the coach, chew him up and spit him out. Drag in the next. Fresh meat.

It can be seen in the quite extraordinary mismanagement going on in both England's major football codes - the Football Association's laughably bad management of the Big Phil Scolari affair and the Rugby Union's wondrous conclusion re England's misfortunes (demote coach Andy Robinson and fire everyone else). It can also be seen in the discontent closer to home, re the Blues and murmurings that David Nucifora and backs coach Joe Schmidt might also be for the mincer.

We've got a bit better in New Zealand at not hauling coaches up before a firing squad the instant a team drops a game. But not much. There is some tacit recognition that those who actually run out on the field might bear some responsibility for what is going on.

Bad as we are, we are no match for the Brits. Crucifying the England football manager is a national sport of fans and media and now, it would seem, the FA as well. Eriksson was finally ditched when he got caught up with the 'fake sheikh' - the News Of The World reporter who dresses up as an oil sheikh and prods his victims into all manner of bizarre admissions.

Sven was easy meat - the fake sheikh just turned the conversation round to how Eriksson could make even more money than his obscene England salary.

The poor, old Swede blundered into the trap before you could say "sheep's eyeballs" or "IQ of 37".

Now you may wonder why anyone would go to all the trouble of pretending to be Arabic, all to entrap a puzzled, old darling who hadn't done a bad job. It can only be because of the public delight in snaring Sven and his ilk. Last I heard, the NOTW hadn't suffered a massive circulation decline because they'd roasted the Swede. Far from it.

Enter the FA. Riven with debate about whether to hire an Englishman or another foreigner, they made the colossally stupid mistake of publicly inviting Scolari - the World Cup-winning coach of Brazil - on board even while FA factions warred about doing so. Scolari, quite reasonably, turned them down as he wasn't interested in a job where half his employers didn't want him.

Instead of quietly turning it down and saying he wanted to spend more time with his family, Scolari (insulted by the FA's public manoeuvrings) dropped the FA in it and they were openly drowning in it.

Now that Steve McClaren has been named Sven's successor, he might as well adopt the captive position in the stocks and await the red hot poker up the bottom. It will not be far away.

And then there's Andy Robinson. England are to be admired for their past stance - they stuck with Clive Woodward, even when he seemed headed for disaster, and the 2003 World Cup resulted.

But poor, old Robbo lost just about every important game England played under his control and have slipped backwards in terms of selection, direction and style.

Some of this can be explained by the loss of key people such as Martin Johnson but Robinson seems the archetypal number two, someone who struggles with command. His greatest crime has been poor selection - Sven could have picked a better England rugby team. But England also have an inability to play any way other than relying on big forwards and a kicking flyhalf; play for territory and kick the goals. If England have to run and pass (one of rugby's central tenets), they're in trouble.

There was a good case for dispatching Robinson and bringing in a new coach to help spark a fundamental shift in English rugby. But the Rugby Union opted to keep Robinson but demote him and fire all his assistants - choosing instead to find a new Director of Elite Rugby. So Robinson will have a boss. There's your testicles, Mr Robinson, now go over there with the other eunuchs.

Which brings us back to the Blues. They have now failed to make the playoffs for seven of the last eight years. Which suggests the problems pre-date Nucifora and Schmidt. Not that they don't have some Robinson-like questions to answer:

1. Why do the Blues have three of the current test front five but the pack rarely plays like it? Anyone who saw the Blues demolished by the Sharks will have a big question mark about their forward play.

2. What is being done about the No 8/halfback/first five-eighths axis? Problems in this area undid the Blues early in the season.

What will they do next year if Luke McAlister is injured?

The amazing thing about the England review was that the old stuffyballs Rugby Football Union did it in an unprecedentedly open and public way.

Whatever the result, the Rugby Union has at least been transparent in its thinking and its moves to fix things.

It would be great if the Blues did the same thing - hold a review and openly discuss why they have made changes or stuck with the status quo. RFU chief executive Francis Baron talked openly about an attitude problem in the England camp.

Will the Blues do the same thing? Probably not. Maybe we need a fake sheikh.