Andrew must bring the curtain down on this sorry farce

On a raw winter's evening,

Andy Robinson retreated down

the Twickenham tunnel as jeers

echoed around a stadium already

evacuated by thousands of

disillusioned England supporters.

He should have been a man

walking into history.

All around the ground, seats had

been long since abandoned. There

had never been an exodus on such

a scale at Twickenham before.

But one man with a vested

interest in English rugby remained

rooted to his position.

As Robinson escaped from the scene

of his latest humiliation, hurriedly

compiling a list of unacceptable

reasons to excuse a third defeat at

Twickenham in four nightmarish

weeks, Rob Andrew stared

unblinkingly across the field from

his vantage point in the East

Stand. His vacant eyes could not

hide his own anguish.

Two months ago, Andrew

became the elite director of English

rugby. His brief is to carry the

game forward, building a bridge

between the Premiership clubs

and the RFU.

But now, critically, his

responsibility is to

bring an end to the

malaise afflicting

the England team.

And so as he

watched HQ empty

to growls of

contempt, Andrew

looked like a man

who knows that this

week, or the week

after, he has to

become judge and

jury on what has

passed here this past

month.

As champions of the world,

England have become the fall guys

of the international game. South

Africa, deprived of key personnel,

inflicted the eighth defeat on

Robinson's team in this calendar

year. With the World Cup a mere

10 months distant, Robinson's plea

for continued clemency must be

treated with disdain.

"I'm not walking away, I don't

believe I should," argued Robinson

last night.

In that case, he should

be forcibly removed. His England

team are bankrupt of belief and

their confidence is shattered.

Robinson's England are confused

and bewildered. For two games,

he played a back row of Martin

Corry, Lewis Moody and Pat

Sanderson in an alien alignment.

Against Argentina, he humiliated

Charlie Hodgson by substituting

him shortly after the interval to be

replaced by Toby Flood, a 21-year-old

still learning the game.

Yet when Hodgson sustained a knee

injury against South Africa last

week, Robinson turned to Andy

Goode to marshal his game plan.

Goode's strength is his kicking

game, but at Twickenham

yesterday he was second best in

that department to South Africa's

Andre Pretorious, whose three

dropped goals provided a

haunting memory of the day

compatriot Jannie de Beer dropped

five goals to boot England out of

the 1999 World Cup.

Clive

Woodward recalled that the return

rail trip from France that night

was a journey from hell, an

experience so miserable that he

vowed that England would be

radically different when the next

World Cup materialised.

Woodward had his critics, and

some called for his head even as

the train passed under the

Channel.

But he placed together a

cogent plan, demanded resources

on an unheard of

level, and promised

to beat the world.

Three years ago last

week, his team did

just that.

Robinson will no

doubt remind the

RFU of Woodward's

mission statement,

as he had been with

him every yard of

the way.

But the

wounds are too

deep now, and the

minds of those

humiliated again at

Twickenham yesterday need to

listen to a change of tune.

Woodward's fortune was that he

had Martin Johnson to lead his

team and Jonny Wilkinson to

punish those who stepped outside

the laws. Neither of those luxuries

are at Robinson's disposal.

Ironically, when Robinson began

his job a couple of years ago, he

recalled how winning the World

Cup had created a hangover like

no other he had known.

'The true

euphoria of winning a World Cup

probably took six months to get

through. When we were under

pressure in the years leading to the

World Cup, we were able to absorb

that pressure.'

On this sorrowful afternoon it

became apparent that Robinson's

class of 2006 have not acquired

that skill. And that is why, when

Robinson walked down the tunnel

without a backward glance last

night, he should have been leaving

for the final time.