YOU DIDN’T need Shaun Edwards’s animated march down the steps late in the second half at Twickenham last weekend to realise that he and Warren Gatland had some notion about how Wales might better play. The evidence was written in the team’s performance, emphatically clear during a resurgent second half.

But even in that opening period, when the Welsh turned over the ball and kicked away possession, Gatland’s mark was still visible. You could see it in the hardness of the tackling. Wales don’t normally tackle with that intensity, especially away from Cardiff. Gatland’s influence was more obvious in the second period and encapsulated in James Hook. Clearly, the fly-half had been reminded at half-time that he should do what he does best: to pass it, to run with it. With belief instilled, Hook’s teammates were ready for some playmaking. In this way, a 20-year losing run at Twickenham ended.

The point about Gatland’s DNA being found all over the Welsh team is made because it is so hard to find Brian Ashton’s fingerprints on England. Ashton has long enjoyed a lofty reputation as a coach and former players speak highly of his work with the Bath team of the early 90s and England team of 2001. But that was a long time ago, and there is a chasm between being a coach and being the coach and no proof that Ashton has bridged it. He believes in an expansive game to bring us to the edge of our seats. There was no sign of that last weekend, nor did one have a sense of his influence even when the team started to win at the World Cup.

Six times last weekend, England kicked away turnover possession. One would have imagined that to be the last thing an Ashton team would do but the difference between the game espoused by the coach and the one played is stark. Those who have listened to Ashton speak about rugby are struck by his understanding of how the game should be played. Knowing the classics does not necessarily make for a good English teacher.

After his short stint as Ireland’s head coach, the impression was that Ashton could be an able number two but not the guy in charge. After defeat to Scotland, Ashton famously remarked that he didn’t know whose gameplan the players had employed but it wasn’t his. He later got the England job because after the sacking of Andy Robinson, a year before the World Cup, he was experienced and available, though the latter of those factors was not the least. Ashton accepted the RFU’s terms that left John Wells and Mike Ford as his assistants. He did not strike an immediate rapport with his coaches, especially Wells. Nearly every England player at the World Cup was aware of these tensions.

As well as this disharmony, players were dissatisfied with the quality of the training, the vagueness about how the team should play and the lack of analysis. We know what Lawrence Dallaglio and Mike Catt thought but many other players briefed journalists with the same story. When the RFU’s director of elite rugby, Rob Andrew, reviewed England’s World Cup, he would have known this and how Ashton retreated into himself after player criticism following the 36-0 loss to South Africa.

So how come Andrew decided Ashton should continue as coach? Once admired for his decisiveness, even ruthlessness, as director of rugby at Newcastle, Andrew has found working for the RFU not quite as straightforward. But being a clever man, he has adapted. Reappointing Ashton was political: who can persecute him for going with the coach in place when England unexpectedly reached the World Cup final?

If Andrew believed in Ashton, the coach’s contract would have taken him through to the 2011 World Cup. The one-year rolling contract given instead was close to the minimum he could have been offered – a small amount of rope but enough for the coach to hang himself. Players pick up on the coach’s working conditions and it affects how they relate to him. Welsh players know they are stuck with Gatland through to 2011 and they will listen carefully to what he says.

Ashton is a good man in the wrong job, working with lieutenants he would not have selected and for generals who don’t believe in him. So far, he has made a very ordinary start to an extraordinary challenge.