All Blacks rich in talent while England still lack k

Stuart Barnes fears England require something extra to avoid heroic sporting suicide at the World Cup.

ONE YEAR out from the World Cup we have an international team praised from one end of the world to the other for rediscovering English humility. But are humility, hard work and home advantage enough to win the World Cup?

Evidence from the summer suggests that Twickenham will need to be worth a dozen points or so against New Zealand unless someone else knocks them out of the competition. If that someone is South Africa, the Springboks, with their fine record at Twickenham, would prove formidable.

One wonders whether hard work, humility and Twickenham will even catapult them from a pool in which both Wales and Australia are capable of the extraordinary. There are plenty of questions for Stuart Lancaster in the year ahead. There are potential answers but the England manager needs a rethink.

The richest irony is that Lancaster is striving for exactly the sort of dynamic game for which some critics (me included) have been yearning for a decade. New Zealand liked what they saw in the threematch series earlier this season. The Kiwi public saw a side attempting to play with the sort of pace and invention at which the All Blacks are sole masters.

England went for it. They refused to go back into their shells and pick a team to slow down the All Blacks. They picked a team to fight fire with fire. And they were burnt. And it was obvious, it was naive. It was naive because New Zealand possess superior individuals and understanding of playing the highest level rugby at pace.

Lancaster is not a man for a backward step and anything to get teams playing more positive rugby should be acclaimed. So let us acclaim England, but let us also admit that unless England unearth more exceptional players in the course of this season, they could be walking towards a heroic sort of sporting suicide in 2015.

There are names. The most obvious is Steffon Armitage, but he will need to emulate his incredible last season to stay in contention. While the incumbent squad will be given leeway for inconsistency, Armitage will be judged harshly. It is harder to get out of a squad than it is to get in.

Such is the New Zealand way. Aaron Cruden suffered an indifferent domestic season and all of New Zealand called for Beauden Barrett to be elected at No 10, but Steve Hansen stuck with his man. The first five repaid him with a performance of brilliance in the demolition of Australia.

This loyalty to the squad engenders the club feel that Lancaster has created with England. But if the exceptional is lacking, something has to be added to hard

Are humility, hard work and home advantage enough?

graft and good intentions. Hansen ignored the existing New Zealand regulations and drafted Sonny Bill Williams straight into the Kiwi mix for their autumn tour.

The chance of Sam Burgess being named in England’s elite squad before he arrives in Bath from Australia is nil. Yet I would fasttrack him into the squad. He might just be the man to make the difference a year from now. If he doesn’t wear the red rose this season, he will not play in the World Cup. Had England a midfield that functioned, I would not be suggesting anything quite as