Lancaster and his players will come back stronger

As the full time whistle rang around the Millenium Stadium last weekend, you could almost hear the collective groan echoing around the nation as England slipped up once again and gifted Wales another Six Nations title.

While the loss was, without doubt, a disappointment, it was one, which in my humble opinion, will benefit this generation of England players perhaps even more than a Grand Slam victory would have done.

Stuart Lancaster has made it starkly clear since the beginning of his reign that his team selections are focused on forming a team with the England-based 2015 World Cup in mind and it seems unlikely that one shock defeat will change that.

The average age of the team that played against Wales is under 25, and with even more young players likely to be given an opportunity to experience the rigours of international test rugby on the summer tour to Argentina, Lancaster’s vision is most definitely one still in the developmental process.

Momentum is huge in the context of a tournament like the World Cup; you want to be on a constant upward trajectory up to the day of the tournament, and with England slipping up this year, I think that is still on the cards.

They will learn from their mistakes this year, gain more big match experience in Argentina and for those lucky enough, Australia, on the Lions Tour. As a result, they will come back stronger, more resilient and more prepared for next year’s Six Nations Championship.

A win next year is more important than a win this year; there is still time for this England set up to sort out the slight faults that emerged in the past few weeks. The scrum, that began to show signs of weakness against Ireland and France, fell apart against Wales – meanwhile, too often throughout the tournament, in most games apart from the opener against Scotland, the attacking play was uninspired, lateral and nowhere near direct enough.

Lancaster needs to master that which the England cricket team have become increasingly adept at in the past few years – keeping a strong spine of a team and incrementally altering individual positions, and allowing new players to bed in before looking at other areas.

Over the next year and a bit, expect to see this becoming clear in Lancaster’s thinking. Brad Barritt is a strong defensive centre, but expect to see the likes of Billy Twelvetrees and Jonathon Joseph being phased in and eventually overtaking the slightly older, slightly more conservative choices of players like Barritt.

To my mind, this generation of young England players is the most promising group I can remember. If handled correctly, as Lancaster has done so far, there is no reason that they cannot be right up there in the reckoning for the 2015 World Cup.

The realities of International Test rugby at the top level are harsh – Wales learnt that in their progression to the 2011 World Cup semi-finals and that lesson is still showing in their performances.

They struggled over the previous summer but highlighted their ruthless, big-game mentality in breathtaking fashion against England.

It is that mentality in the games that matter most that England must cultivate and to lose one such game in the way they did, with the weight of expectation that was prevalent in the English media, will only serve to mentally prepare the players, toughen them up and make sure that the next time they find themselves in such a situation, the result is different.