One thing that doesn't add up in this for me.

It's being reported that Burgess is marrying his fiancée in Sydney next month. Has anybody seen Bath's fixture list for December, big Premiership games, huge European games. And this was a guy who wanted to force his way into the 6 Nations squad as a forward. How they hell would arranging a wedding on the other side of the world during your club sides trickiest period tie in with someone who saw his future in RU post World Cup, whatever the outcome of that tournament? Was he ever really going to stick around?

nope. He stole the headlines and took a nice year out while playing in the WC which i believed all along when he went, and still do, he was assured of playing some part in. He goes back to South Sydney in no worse a position he left 12 months ago, and can always say he gave the other code crack and played in a huge home WC. He still has his prime years ahead of him and his bank balance is unaffected.Win-Win Sam Burgess, RFU well and truly duped. It's hilarious, good for him i say

I do not think his role or style is to pass on rumours or hearsay before things were resolved, that is for places like this forum. Now that Burgess has left he can share some of his information with us which IMO makes this source more credible.

While I would suggest quite the opposite. (see above)

His role is in the media, exactly the role that he'd mention the rumour if he believed in it. Media guys don't sit on a story for 3 weeks.

Like I said on another thread the RFU were so focussed on the "brand" they forgot the primary objective was to win big rugby games.
Giving Lancaster a 4 year extension to his contract before the WC was even more self congratulatory. Nothing wrong here, all how we like it.
And still if that hopeless decision maker of a captain had let Owen Farrell kick that last penalty against Wales then a draw would have seen England through the group stage and we would have been faced with Lancaster and Farrell to prepare us for the next WC in Japan.

The whole house of cards on the field is built on the foundation of a captain who gets to be captain because he's a jolly good bloke and plays for the right club.

Robshaw is maybe the third best English open-side at a push, certainly behind Steffon Armitage and Matt Kvesic. How can he be expected to lead a team, most of whom are smart enough to know that he's lucky to even be in the XV to start with?

If they'd beaten Wales then they may have been crowned as world beaters and Burgess may still have been at Bath.

No Chance. They were never going to beat South Africa - New Zealand - Australia

They should have made the quarters mind, but that would likely still have been end of the road.

Ironically if you watched Robshaw in his earlier years at Quins he was a great ball handler and offloader. When Quins and Saracens were competing for the title they were total opposites in style, Quins threw the ball around and played fast and off the cuff, Saracens had Farrell punting the ball in the air to kick and chase and played tight, forward based rugby. Effective at times but utterly boring to watch. Sound familiar ?

I agree that I don't think they would have but if they'd beaten Wales they'd have gone through to the knock out stage and you just never know. What I was meaning really is that sometimes the difference between success and failure can be slim. Look at Wigan this year. They were 2 tries away from what I think would have been a deserved double. The England team in Italia 90 were one goal away from going out in the group stage and went on to be an iconic team and a couple of penalties away from a World Cup final.

While England RU don't sound to have been that convincing I do think things have been blown out of proportion a little and as a result for once I think the only winner has been RL.

I understand your point but those are the margins that separate winners and losers at the top level. The All Blacks have won many games in added time where any mistake ends the match. They won the previous WC final by 1 point. How many tight games do the top sporting sides seem to just win? Leeds do it far too often for it to be just probability. It's at the moments when you need to make something happen or dig in that the great teams perform.
In the case of England they should have been competitive. We have some very good players, they're fit and they were playing at their home ground. In fact they didn't even need to beat Wales - a draw (which was possible until Robshaw blundered) wound have seen the through. But they blew it. They also blew out against Australia. But if you look back through Lancaster's tenure that has been a characteristic of this England side. Blowing out in big games, particularly in the 6 nations which Lancaster never won in 4 attempts.

As sad as I am when we loose our "stars" to the NRL, I'd rather they make the trip down under than go to yawnion. Those of us who remember all the predjudice we were dealt by RU in days gone by is still fresh in the memory. I didn't watch any of the Rugby (Yawnion) World Cup. Glad that Sam is back (I LMFAO every time a league convert dosen't cut it, but I don't think it will put them off poaching others).

I think after the game yesterday we ought to stop calling it Yawnion. The irony police will have to start making arrests.

Hard to make a case against on the evidence presented.