ENGLAND’S next attack coach should be none of the following three - inexperienced, part of the 2003 squad or from Leicester. It is vital that an untried leader such as Martin Johnson has a second-in-command who has had some years under his belt as a coach. This rules out Mike Catt. It also eliminates Austin Healey. Under the experienced Brian Ashton, Healey as an original-thinking skills coach was an impish idea. There was logic to Healey working with Ashton. There is none under the green Johnson.

Within regular rugby circles, Pat Howard has been the most prominent name bandied about, but his Leicester credentials are against him. The Tigers are a proud and distinctive club. They do things their way and although they have been very successful, the fierce singularity of the Tigers nature would not be to the liking of every England international.

As matters stand, the Tigers are represented by Johnson, John Wells and Graham Rowntree. The addition of Howard (or Healey) would boost the club’s representative on the coaching set-up to four, which is unbalanced to say the least. Supporters of the club/country coaching progression will point to Wales, where Warren Gatland, Shaun Edwards, Rob Howley and Craig White have metamorphosed Wales into Wasps. But Wales is based around far fewer rugby cultures and the Wasps way has been, by and large, the most successful of recent years, as two Heineken Cups and three Premiership titles prove. If an international team is going to emulate a club, it has to be the best one. If England is mirrored in the Leicester image, the chances are that the Welsh Wasps will beat them.

Apart from the fact that Howard’s English rugby culture is solely Leicester, he has much in his favour. He has made the leap from player to coach and forged a reputation for intelligent coaching. It is no surprise that the nonpopulist English rugby fans who can see beyond the fine playing achievements of the World Cup-winning squad have lobbied for him.

However, there is another Australian coach with compelling credentials. Unfashionable and understated, Bath’s head coach Steve Meehan has performed something akin to a rugby miracle. He picked up the baton as head coach when Ashton left for England and has reawoken ambition in a team that fell dormant under the methodical coaching of the Australian World Cup coaching team of John Connolly and Michael Foley.

Ashton stirred life into the club but Meehan has made Bath into the most multi-dimensional attack in England. He has also made them a side capable of winning by playing it tight or loose. This is what England have lacked for years, that ability to vary the game. Johnson understood the crucial nature of the balance as a captain; as a manager he needs someone able to deliver this variety.

Meehan’s Bath CV looks better still when one analyses the role of the front five in the Bath attacking game. As Ashton helped turn the new manager from a traditional English oak of a lock forward into a thinking football player, Meehan has done the same with the volatile Danny Grewcock and previously hard-working – but no more – Steve Borthwick.

The influence of Matt Stevens and Lee Mears, two of the front row, is even more pertinent. They were simply unstoppable against Sale yesterday. The offloading game Meehan has introduced and encouraged from the front row is the extra element Bath has over other teams. Johnson’s England mastered it too. Bath are no longer a forward-based or backs-dominated team; they have evolved, and seriously quickly, into one capable of scoring in any number of ways.

Until now, Meehan has not been mentioned because he is neither a World Cup winner nor a big name. In this celebrity culture, it makes it hard for him to earn accolades and gain headlines.

Yet with Johnson as the head man, a thoughtful and reputedly cussed Australian coach would fit into the equation. Having worked under Nick Mallett at Stade Français, Meehan has plenty of experience working as a No 2 to an imposing personality. The man who revived Bath could do likewise for England. England need a subtle balance on and off the field. Meehan has the attributes to provide both.