Why Stuart Lancaster's England have little chance of winning the 2015 World Cup

For all Stuart Lancaster's talk of a team "developing and learning", the England head coach's overall record in his 32 games in charge is but a tryline's width better than his sacked immediate predecessors Martin Johnson and Brian Ashton, and a country mile worse than that of the 2003 World Cup-winner Clive Woodward.

With the 2015 Rugby World Cup looming large, England have lost five games out of five, and the fact they were against the two best teams around in New Zealand and South Africa was counterbalanced by the manner of their defeat - a lack of creativity and penetration in the opposition 22.

So how does Lancaster compare?

In terms of wins, his 56 per cent from 32 games is marginally better than Johnson and Ashton's 55 per cent. Johnson resigned after a dismal 2011 World Cup, while Ashton was unceremoniously sacked in 2008, learning of his dismissal in the media.

England's dominance ahead of the 2003 World Cup has been trumpeted loud and clear during Lancaster's recent five defeats, but the ill omens for success next year are thrown into sharp focus by Woodward's overall win rate of 71 per cent.

One statistic circulated after England's defeat by South Africa at the weekend was that, during the five defeats, Lancaster's side scored on six occasions from 19 visits to their opponents' 22. New Zealand and South Africa scored nine times from 17 visits between them. That suggests a lack of attacking nous in the final quarter compared to the world's best.

Comparing the current England crop to previous vintages shows Lancaster's men to, again, be way off Woodward's sides - 2.2 tries per game versus Woodward's excellent 3.9.

In both attack and defence, Lancaster's England can be bracketed along with Johnson's and Ashton's sides. What becomes apparent is that all England sides over the last 17 years have enjoyed similarly solid defences - suggesting that while successful teams are built on defence, it is attack that will usually win tournaments.

Andy Robinson's England scored a respectable amount of tries per game, but those results are skewed slightly by the 12 scored in a 70-0 win over Canada. In Lancaster's defence, Johnson's tries per game is distorted by a 10-try rout of Romania in September 2011 - not that it helped him, he lost his job weeks after.

Given the metronomic ability of Jonny Wilkinson to kick between the posts, it is perhaps a little surprising that the successful conversion rate of Lancaster's team is identical to that of Woodward's, and better than Johnson, Ashton and Robinson's teams too - three out of four conversions made is the going rate for Lancaster's side.

But if there is one thing that Woodward and Wilkinson will know, it is the value of a dropped goal. And Lancaster's England have completely neglected that side of the game, scoring just three dropped goals in 32 games, compared with Woodward's 26 in 83. The chances of Owen Farrell emulating Wilkinson's World Cup-winning effort at the Telstra Stadium in 2003 appear slim on this evidence.

Let us face it, equally slim are the the chances of Lancaster's England emulating Woodward's heroes at all. This evidence points to an underwhelming World Cup performance, with a side more reminiscent of those of Ashton and Johnson, firmly in the second tier of the international game. Home support at next year's tournament could help, but here is much 'developing and learning' to be done, and not a lot of time in which to do it before England's first match against Fiji in 10 months' time.