"It is personally shattering for me to say this, but winning the World Cup was the worst thing that ever happened to the England team." - Sir Clive Woodward, 2006.

The last time England won a Grand Slam was 2003, the same year they reached the absolute pinnacle of the game by lifting the Rugby World Cup. Since then there have been a clutch of wins over southern hemisphere opponents, a solitary Six Nations title in 2011, momentary glimpses of brilliant individual talent but all under a cloud of frustration, ill-judged and impulsive selection and, ultimately, failure.

Now Eddie Jones is charged with putting some trophies back into the dusty Twickenham cabinet and exorcising the ghosts of 2003. He will have to right some of the wrongs of the past 12 years and has already identified some fundamental ingredients needed to make England a dominant force again, ones they have been without: world-class players, a leadership team, succession planning in the backroom staff and a gameplan suited to England's strengths.

Jones takes charge of England in the wake of the disastrous Rugby World Cup -- where they became the first hosts to be eliminated at the pool stage -- and they are ranked fourth in the Six Nations in terms of success since 2003. But is it all doomed? Do England need to rip it all up and try again or can Jones turn England into a world-class outfit?

The talent vacuum

"Why haven't England been dominant since 2003? Because they haven't had those [world class] players," Jones said when he unveiled his first squad in January. "If you go back to 2003 you had Will Greenwood at centre, Jonny Wilkinson at 10, Lawrence Dallaglio at No.8, Richard Hill at six, Martin Johnson at four. They were guys who have changed games of rugby and England haven't had those players [since]."

When the final whistle blew on England's World Cup final victory in 2003, England lost Johnson, Jason Leonard and Neil Back to retirement. Dallaglio was gone within a year and Jonny Wilkinson would be sidelined until 2007. There was immediately a void of world-class talent, one that England have struggled to fill since, as another England great Jeremy Guscott readily admits.

"I feel the talent just hasn't been good enough to enable the team to win Grand Slams and to win in the southern hemisphere and to then feature well in World Cups," Guscott tells ESPN. "And that goes for coaching and players.

"England have also lacked a talisman since the grand days of 2003 and I don't mean like Jonny Wilkinson. I see a talisman as someone judged on what they do in play, someone who says 'follow me' -- someone like Brian O'Driscoll or Martin Johnson. 2003 was full of those players and since then England have struggled to make a contribution player-wise to a world XV in any of those years."

Guscott has a point: since the inaugural World Rugby awards in 2001, just one England player has taken the Player of the Year award and that was Wilkinson in 2003.

To cover that shortfall, players have been fast-tracked. Debuts have been handed out in hope rather than expectation. Since 2003, 124 players have been handed Test caps -- in the Six Nations only France have been more generous. Injury has also robbed England of players who could have reached that level, such as Alex Corbisiero, Tom Rees, Tom Croft and Manu Tuilagi, who have all seen their careers blighted by injury. It raises the question: are England's best and brightest talents being asked to do too much?

Welcome to the club-versus-country debate. To summarise, the current Heads of Agreement deal finishes at the end of this season -- it is a contract that is the blueprint for the relationship between the various stakeholders in English rugby. Featuring in that is the Elite Player Squad agreement which stipulates when England players are released for international duty from their clubs. Central contracts such as those which govern New Zealand rugby -- deals which see the union have complete control of their elite players -- are not likely to be implemented soon but improvements can be made which will focus on development and player welfare.

Charged with heading up that aspect is Damian Hopley, CEO of the Rugby Players' Association. "We have outstanding talent but we were spoilt in 2003 and that was the product of the environment Clive created," says Hopley. "They were a group of players who worked incredibly hard with that end-goal in sight.

"The number of games now is significant, there are too many. There are some great club players, but not everyone can cut it at Test level. Giving players time is tough in a results-driven business.

"But I think we're in a good place. It's about how do you make the very good club players into brilliant international players. In the confines of a season which is 41 weeks long, you have polar interests between club and country. You have England hoping players will peak while clubs do the same."

If a balance can be found, there could be a bright future ahead. England have won two out of the last three Junior World Championships; those teams are bearing fruit in the guise of Maro Itoje, Paul Hill, George Ford, Owen Farrell, Jack Clifford and Henry Slade. These are the crop that Jones feels can be developed and which will blossom into world-class players.

"Our job is to develop those players and if we do that the side will come through," Jones said. "There are enough good, hard-working players here, but to be the most dominant team in the world you've got to be better than good and hard-working. You have to want to do that bit extra, seek that extra bit of advice, you have to look at doing things differently. You've got to be desperate and hungry for success."

The coaching carousel

Jones is the first coach since Sir Clive to be given carte blanche with his coaching team, something Dean Ryan, the Worcester Warriors coach and a scholar of the game, struggles to comprehend.

"Some of the appointments just didn't make sense," Ryan tells ESPN. "Why would you put one of the game's greatest brains, Brian Ashton, in as head coach when he is more suited to a straight coaching role?

"And then you had Martin Johnson and Stuart Lancaster who never had support structures around them. Johnno should never have been isolated in that position; he needed a first-class, experienced coach with him to have any chance.

"We give too much respect to an individual who puts his hand up and thinks he can do well. The RFU must control more of the intellect around that appointment. Look at that thread against a Warren Gatland [Wales coach since 2007] or Joe Schmidt [Ireland coach in back-to-back Six Nations successes] who have miles on the clock. Some of the choices have been about survival.

"We arrived at a position with Stuart Lancaster where we needed an interim coach [after the Rugby World Cup and in time for the forthcoming Six Nations]. How can one of the biggest unions in the world end up at that predicament? We have a league with huge resources and a focus on development but we end up at a stage where we need a new coach in place within three weeks."

England have never been close to the succession planning the All Blacks have used to help create stability for their 2011 and 2015 World Cup wins. Within 12 months of England winning that 2003 World Cup, Woodward was gone amid an ugly battle with the RFU over release periods and funding and Andy Robinson, his assistant, was fast-tracked. Robinson, Brian Ashton, Martin Johnson and Stuart Lancaster were all sent packing and now they have arrived at the vastly experienced, albeit Australian, Jones.

The standout homegrown candidate for the England job this time around was Rob Baxter but when Lancaster left the RFU, Ian Ritchie said the search had begun for a coach with international experience -- a statement that essentially meant they were going for Jones or Jake White, who won the World Cup with South Africa in 2007.

There has not been that element of mentoring or learning within England's management that the All Blacks have perfected. Since 2006, there has been talk of the RFU creating a director of rugby position which would oversee the elite international game. Four times since, Woodward has been linked with a move back to the RFU and on all four occasions, goalposts were moved and confused thinking ruled out any potential appointment.

Jones is now that sage figure charged with bringing in the next England coach when he leaves in 2019 to watch cricket in Barbados. "You can do a lot with players in four years and it's the same with coaches," said Jones. "I see it as part of my job to develop England coaches to take over. Everyone wants to have their own nationality as head coach, and I have a job to take England forward and develop England coaches. I can do that."

Finding a winning game plan

 

Successful club players have been thrown in but such is the short-termism and immediate demand for victories, if they struggle in their first couple of matches, they are dropped. The players play one way for their club and then have been expected to morph into another for their country in a short space of time. It all gets a little bit muddled.

Take the last World Cup. In the previous Six Nations, England's set piece was brilliant and they were happy to put width on the ball. The style was easy on the eye and with a little tweak here and there over field position, they had what it would have taken to beat Wales or Australia and advance to the knockout phase of the World Cup.

But when the tournament finally arrived, England got stage fright and adopted a far more conservative, direct style and their previously resolute pillar of the set piece crumbled.

"The players need to understand exactly what England's game plan is," says Lewis Moody, a World Cup winner and England captain in 2011. "We've not had a clear focus when the players have come together, or when the coaches have been brought together. No one has really nailed their colours to the mast over exactly what England are and how we would play the game."

World Cup-winning team-mate Phil Vickery agrees. "The set piece has been the cornerstone of England but it was terrible during the World Cup. I ask you now, what is England?

"You go back to 2003 and everyone goes on about our team but we didn't play a lot of rugby and when we did, we sometimes lost Grand Slams. The game has moved on beyond all recognition from then, but we don't know what England are now."

This dilemma is personified in the inside centre and openside conundrum. Not since 2003 has England had a distributor in the league of Greenwood or an openside like Back; for a 2015 version of this read the Wallaby duo Matt Giteau and David Pocock. The two problem positions dogged Lancaster's era.

Jones has already attempted to tackle these issues. He has outlined what he wants from his centres and says they will look for a short-term fix at openside -- James Haskell is the prime candidate -- while looking to develop a standout No.7 over the next four years; Ospreys' Sam Underhill is a contender here.

"We want to play a brand of rugby that suits English characteristics," Jones said. "We want to have a really strong set piece, we want to have a dominant scrum, we want to have a good lineout.

"We have to be able to move the ball. Good rugby means that you do all the simple things of the game well. Then, when you get an opportunity to move the ball, you move the ball, and you do it with crispness, you do it with accuracy, and you do it with speed. That's what we're attempting to do."

This approach will also be introspective. Lancaster's England tried to copy the All Blacks' blueprint and it proved to be a restrictive view as by the time they had caught up with the New Zealand game plan, the Kiwis had already moved on. Jones says he won't fall into the same trap.

"We aren't going to be copying how the All Blacks play," Jones said. "We are going to have our own style of play."

Eddie Jones - Saviour of English rugby?

Jones talks a good game. He has talked of the pressure being on the players and not him and also the need not to rip up everything and start again. There is an intrigue around England. The fundamental problems that have dogged the national team over the last 12 or so years are firmly on his radar and he is attempting to address them. The crop of players coming through are hugely promising and his EPS squad is a fresh approach.

The EPS suggests his will be an era focused on both short- and long-term success. The young players included have the ability to exceed the capabilities of the current crop.

Hopley sees reason for optimism. "If I could wave a magic wand, it would be to simplify things as much as possible," he says. "With these new players, you just want things to be as simple as possible. As a rugby fan, you look at all of the great things that England rugby does: we are great at event management, great at participation, great pro sponsorship deals, great broadcasting talent and methods and great fan engagement. But the one great big bloody elephant in the room is the lack of on-field success.

"I don't think we are far off getting that right. No one was more affected and distraught about the World Cup than the players and the management, they suffered the most, but we aren't a million miles off where we want to be. A little bit of luck and who knows, then you have the momentum. There is an opportunity for this crop to make a name for themselves."

All the ingredients are there, it just needs that dab of clarity. Perhaps 'Fast Eddie' is the man to right the wrongs of more than a decade.

"We have to create an environment in the team that dictates the players want to be absolutely fanatical about wanting to be in a winning England team," Jones said. "I have been employed by England, not to be the saviour of English rugby. My job is to create a winning English rugby team.

"That's what I have to do and that is what I am going to do. It's going to take more than what the players have ever done in their lives to create a winning England team, that's the reality of it, because otherwise it would have happened by now.

"Something has to change. It's the old definition of insanity. Someone expecting different people to do the same thing over and over again hoping to get different results. It doesn't happen. If we do the same as what we have done since 2003 then we will get the same results.

"I think that the players are going to find it difficult, because sometimes if you play in the Premiership here and you do well then you get selected for England and you are quite comfortable. We have to make the players a little bit uncomfortable."

So far the messages from the new coach have been bullish and he will bring a level of international nous and coaching experience not seen since the days of Woodward. He will assess the faults of the last 12 years and attempt to right England's wrongs. But come Feb. 6, the honeymoon period will be over when new captain Dylan Hartley -- himself a controversial choice, a change from the norm instigated by Jones -- leads out England at Murrayfield.

Only then will we begin to see whether English rugby is back on track after so many wrong turns.