Coaches who have shot their bolt...

Come 15 months or so time, a lot of international rugby coaches will be looking for new jobs (or in some cases retiring, possibly covered in glory, possibly not).

But you have to think that there are two teams that will be, barring miracles, out on their ears. Those teams would be the current England and Wales teams - in particular two English giants, Edwards and Johnson.

The much vaunted defensive maestro has produced a defence that is particularly and peculiarly vulnerable to both giving away yellow cards and falling apart as soon as it has a player missing. It's a bad combination and it cost Wales their games against England and certainly helped the Irish feel much more comfortable too. Gatland seems to have produced high-risk but spectacular rugby. Wales, when it all clicks, have produced comfortably the most exciting attacking rugby of the contest, and have produced it in just about all the games. There are errors, and those errors were critical against France but in general the errors are those of ambition and aren't critical save in stopping Wales scoring - they don't usually knock on and give up points.

The problem is, I believe, that the Edwards defensive system has been around too long. It's a good system - don't get me wrong - but it's long enough in the tooth that coaches are working out how to break it (Wasps have been struggling defensively too remember) and international sides are good enough to really exploit the weaknesses.

But, both Gatland and Edwards will be, if you want more exciting rugby, in a stronger position that a certain M. Johnson. He's revealing why coaches and managers need experience. He's created a team that panders to locks - 1-10 and usually 15 are pretty good and in the right places to defend, create scrums, line outs and the like. But the 10-12-13-14 activities seem to completely elude him. Why bother to give fast ball, as a lock he wants the 10 to kick for metres and another lineout - slow ball forces that choice. If the 10 is just doing that, the 12 being in the right places to give a good option is actually a bad thing - and England never had a 12 supporting either 10.

Don't get me wrong yet again - there are certainly times that this is the right tactic. But good rugby has several game plans that are changed and adapted in light of the situation in front of the players on attack (on defence the choices are fewer in some respects I think because you tend to have to commit as a team to a unified approach) and as we are seeing boring rugby is, provided you keep a full team on the field, easy to defend at this level. All it takes, as Ireland showed last week, is one slip in concentration and you lose. England are going backwards not forwards... and the buck has to stop at the top table.