England are at their lowest ebb for 20 years. And before we lapse into the issue about development, let us just mention what Conrad Smith, the outstanding All Blacks centre, had to say on the subject: “A rebuilding year? We couldn't even mention that. Rugby is not about four-year cycles. We pride ourselves on producing great teams every year.”

So now that 2008 is at an end, objective reflection suggests that England have not had a team as far off “great” since the mid-Eighties. Lawrence Dallaglio, in his newspaper column yesterday, likened this England team to his team in 1997 who also got heavily defeated by the All Blacks, yet that same side came back for seconds three weeks later, delivered one of the all-time titanic Twickenham performances and hauled back the All Blacks to a draw.

If we are looking for a definition of development, that was it. One of the saddest reflections of England's past month was Martin Johnson, in his Saturday evening post-match press conference, noting wearily that: “At risk of saying the same thing for three weeks on the trot, we didn't take our chances and score.” Three weeks of repeated faultlines is not indicative of anything much developing at all.

So where now? Rewind 20 years and we may just find the answer. After going through captains like Saturday's referee went through yellow cards, England finally elected to establish some permanence and made what seemed like an astonishing appointment: Will Carling, 22 years of age, to skipper the team.

For Carling, read Tom Rees and James Haskell. They are 24 and 23 respectively, have more caps than Carling did at his appointment, they are club-mates and best mates, and often stay behind together after training at London Wasps to do extra work.

Haskell is the more charismatic, Rees has slightly the more sensible, mature air about him, but both are popular and respected and have done as much as anyone to rise above the mediocrity of November - even if Rees was, bizarrely, dropped to the bench for the All Blacks game.

But that is not to say that either Haskell or Rees have three grand slams up their sleeves. Captaincy is no magic wand anyway, as Carling himself recalls, and there are distinct differences between then and now.

“The key thing to remember is that although we were successful, it wasn't me that did it,” Carling said. “It was because we had some serious hard boys - the Moores, Richards, Dooleys, Ackfords, Winterbottoms - who worked very hard and we had Geoff Cooke consistently selecting the same players. If I had been the young captain of a young team, which is what the present side are, it would have been horrific.

“I was so bloody scared when I first addressed the team as captain that I couldn't speak. You stand up and see all these guys and think: ‘What do I say to them?' But we had all the experience and knowledge to be successful in that very room. You couldn't say that of this England team.”

If Steve Borthwick is struggling with his own game, a change of leadership is a start, but merely appointing a new captain does not come close to settling the leadership issue.

One of the weaknesses in the English club game seems to be the quality of personality that it is developing. A hallmark of the Clive Woodward era was that the players were so professionally drilled - they were told what to eat, how many weights to lift, how to develop peripheral vision - that they barely needed to think for themselves, yet that group had such calibre of personalities that they would challenge the prescribed lives laid down for them.

In the Guinness Premiership, a similar nanny state is developing, where young players are also being raised in a system where they do not have to think for themselves. We are now seeing the product of that within the England camp, an environment in which players seem happier to fit into the system rather than leave their mark on it. Carling's suggestion, while there are so many so fresh in the England dressing-room, is a mentoring system.

“I would do it,” he said. “I would do anything to help Johnno.” So part of the answer may be in a Carling-type appointment. A young man at the helm. A brave new era. It sounds good and it worked pretty well once. But the broader solution? That is far harder to grasp.